Biomes
Tundra
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A biome of the far north and the highest mountains, too cold for trees to grow at all, characterized by a short summer growing season and, across most of the Arctic tundra, a layer of permanently frozen subsoil called permafrost that keeps meltwater from draining away and produces the biome's characteristic wet, hummocky ground. Vegetation is limited to low shrubs, grasses, mosses and lichens close to the ground, and the animals that live here year-round, such as the gray wolf's northern populations, carry heavy insulation and, often, seasonal coat color change. Antarctica's ice-free coastal fringe, where species such as the emperor penguin breed, shares the tundra biome's cold, low-precipitation character even though it is formally its own polar desert.
Facts
Climate
Annual Precipitation (mm) Typical Low Temperature (C) Typical High Temperature (C) Cross-Tradition Connections
Demonstrates
The tundra biome sits mainly within the high-latitude auroral oval, the band where aurora is visible on the greatest number of nights per year, making it the biome most closely associated with regularly observing the phenomenon.
Home To
Antarctica's ice-free coastal fringe, where emperor penguins breed, is formally its own polar desert rather than tundra proper, but shares the tundra biome's cold, low-precipitation character; the atlas's founding seven biomes do not yet include a dedicated polar-ice type.
Sources
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Description
The Koppen climate classification, the standard reference scheme this entry's own hedge implicitly gestures toward, draws a firm line this entry does not fully draw: ET (tundra) requires at least one month averaging above freezing, while EF (ice cap, sometimes called polar desert) has no month above freezing at all. By Koppen's own criteria the two are separate climate classes, not one biome with a footnote; this entry's inclusion of Antarctica's ice-free coastal fringe under Tundra, while noting in its own prose that the area is "formally its own polar desert," is the simplified convention, not the only one a foundational climate classification supports.
A dissenting reading, from Wladimir KoppenEncyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
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