Battle for the biosphere

The biosphere= the part of the earth's surface inhabited by living things

An ecosystem= A unit made up of living things like fauna and flora and their non living environment like soil, air and climate

A biome= A large scale ecosystem made up of distinctive plant and animal communities best adapted to the environment

Limiting factor= those factors which limit the survival chances of fauna and flora. For example, light, water, solar radiation, nutrients

Albedo= the reflectivity of a surface. Ice and snow has a high albedo (reflects 90%) whereas the oceans have a low albedo (absorb 80%)

How local and global factors affect the climate of biomes:

-Latitide affects the climate of a place. The further you travel away from the equator the cooler it bets. This is because the earth is curved. The suns rays hitting the earth at a higher latitude are spread out over a creater area. Its hotter at the equator and cooler at the poles. 

-Air masses also affects climate. Air masses which come from the poles will be cold whilst those which come form the equator will be warm. Cold air is dry, it is heavy so it sinks while warm air is often  full of moisture and is light so rises. If the biome is below where two masses meet there will be frontal rain. 

-Altitude also effects temperature. The higher the altitude the colder it gets- roughly -1C for every 100m. This is because the atmosphere is thinner at high altitude so can't abosorb as much of the suns energy. Also there is less ground to aborb sunlight and there is likely to be more snow with a high albedo. How this affects biomes? more likely to be tundra or conferouse forest. Lots of releif rainfall means there is likely to be forest

-Distance from the sea affect climate because the sea warms up and cools down more slowly than land as it is deep. So, the nearer you are to the sea the warmer you will be in winter and the cooler in summer.

-The type of soil. The more nutrient rich the soil the more plant life it can support. How this will affect biomes? If the soils are very nutrient rich then the trees will be coniferous (won't drop their leaves) as there is no need for nutrient cycling. Where there are less…