Climate and vegetation in North America

North America - a vast stretching continent. From here, the southern tip of Panama, spanning to the far north of Greenland. There are many types of climate and vegetation, which vary a great deal between different regions. Let’s explore the North American climate zones. Starting in the north, where it’s too cold, icy and dark in the winter for most plants and trees to survive.

Here, you need a lot of clothes - a thick jacket, a hat, gloves, and warm snow boots. Only lichens and moss can thrive in this tundra environment. This is the arctic climate. It includes Alaska, Northern Canada and the largest island on earth, Greenland, which is covered in a sheet of ice. Going south away from the Arctic, we cross a boundary where the tundra ends and trees appear - called the tree line.

South of this tree line, forest thrives in the slightly warmer climate - the subarctic. This forest covers most of Canada and Alaska, expanding beyond North America and through Northern Asia and Northern Europe. This is the largest type of forest on earth, with birch and aspen trees, but mostly hardy evergreen trees like pine, fir, spruce - called a boreal forest or taiga forest. The boreal forest ends and the climate changes a little north of the border between Canada and the United States. Southern Canada has four distinct seasons with very cold winters and warm summers.

The forest here is thick with broadleaf trees like maple and oak, which lose their leaves in the autumn. This is called a deciduous forest. Continuing south, the deciduous forest spreads across the eastern United States. Summers here are hot and humid and winters cold, wet and snowy. But there are still four distinct seasons.

This is a temperate climate. Further south the forest takes on a different feel, with more piney woods, large sprawling oaks and cypress swamps. The temperate zone becomes somewhat hotter with very humid summers and mild, rainy winters. It rarely freezes - this is the subtropical zone. West, beyond the Mississippi river, the forest eventually thins out.

Grasslands and commercial farming occupy the middle one-third of America - this is called the prairie. Here in the middle of the continent - we’re far away from the oceans. Oceans hold heat from the environment, circulating it through the water and air. When warm currents reach land, like the west coast of America - the temperature remains consistently mild. Once, inside the continent, away from the regulating effects of the ocean - summers can be extremely hot and humid.

Winters experience deep sub-zero freezes. Also, there may be extended periods of drought, which is tough on trees, but grass thrives. We call this a - continental climate. The grassland prairie ends at the snow-covered Rocky Mountains. Beyond this mountain range it's rocky and getting brown - very brown.

The western third of the United States and northern Mexico is largely, hot and dry deserts, although it gets pretty cold when the sun goes down. Occasionally it even snows. Most deserts on the North American continent are inland, between the western coastal mountains and the Rocky Mountains. Few plants can naturally survive here. However cacti and shrubs thrive.

Mountain ranges and deserts spread southward into Mexico, where the temperature remains roughly the same throughout the year. It’s hot with two seasons, a rainy and a dry. Here, palms, flowering trees and cacti grow easily. Continuing south towards Panama, it gets wetter and wetter, in other words more precipitation. This allows for thick dense rainforest.

We have reached a tropical climate. Hopefully, you have changed from your snow boots to your flip-flops by now.