The taiga, also called the boreal forest or snow forest, is a type of land area covered mostly by forests with cone-shaped trees like pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga is the largest land area of its kind in the world. In North America, it covers most of inland Canada, Alaska, and parts of the northern United States.
In physical geography, a tundra is a type of environment where trees cannot grow because of very cold temperatures and short growing seasons. There are three types of tundra: Arctic, Alpine, and Antarctic. Tundra plants include small shrubs, grasses, mosses, and lichens.
Arctic methane emissions help increase methane levels in the atmosphere. While the Arctic is one of many natural sources of methane, human activities now also play a role because of climate change. In the Arctic, the main human-influenced sources of methane include thawing permafrost, melting Arctic sea ice, breakdown of ice-like structures called clathrates, and melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Sea ice in the Arctic has decreased in size and thickness over recent decades because of climate change. It is melting more during summer than it is freezing during winter. Global warming, which is caused by greenhouse gases, is the reason for the loss of Arctic sea ice.
The Greenland ice sheet is the second-largest ice sheet in the world. It is about 1,673 meters (or 5,489 feet) thick on average and as thick as 3,488 meters (or 11,444 feet) at its thickest point. The ice sheet stretches about 2,900 kilometers (or 1,800 miles) from north to south, and it is up to 1,100 kilometers (or 680 miles) wide near its northern edge.
Thermal expansion is the way matter changes size—growing longer, wider, or larger in volume—when heated. This change affects the material’s size and density, but it usually does not include changes during phase transitions, like melting or freezing. In simple terms, when something is heated, it expands.
Climate change has many effects on the ocean. One major effect is the increase in ocean temperatures. This leads to more frequent heatwaves in the ocean.
Ocean acidification is the steady decrease in the pH level of Earth’s oceans. From 1950 to 2020, the average pH of ocean surfaces dropped from about 8.15 to 8.05. Human activities that release carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere are the main cause of ocean acidification.
Plastic recycling is the process of turning plastic waste into new products. Recycling helps reduce the need for landfills, saves natural resources, and protects the environment from plastic pollution and harmful gases. Recycling rates for plastic are lower than for other materials like aluminum, glass, and paper.
Bioplastics are types of plastic made from renewable sources like plants and other living things. In systems that reuse resources, bioplastics are important. Traditional plastics made from oil are often mixed with bioplastics to create products that partly use bioplastics.