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A ten-question quiz, eight myth-or-fact cards, and a five-step walk through rain and the ITCZ. The answers follow the same sourced wording as the rest of the site.
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Quiz
In Met Office wording, rainfall in a tropical rainforest climate is:
NASA distinguishes how many types of rainforest?
Britannica says the highest plant layer, or tree canopy, extends to heights between:
Contrary to popular belief, Britannica says the rainforest floor is:
Tropical savannah climates, in Met Office wording, have:
The ITCZ is:
A 2024 Met Office article says what share of the world’s biodiversity is thought to exist in the Amazon region?
FAO’s 2020 assessment found the world has a total forest area of:
NASA’s Manaus example (1970-2000) has its driest month in:
Britannica says most rainforest soils are:
Myth or fact?
All rainforests are in the tropics.
The rainforest floor is an impassable jungle.
Rainforest soils are very fertile.
A tropical rainforest climate has over 60 mm of rain in every month, in Met Office wording.
Tropical savannah climates are just another name for rainforest climates.
It is settled that half of all species live in the Amazon.
The Amazon has no seasonality in rainfall.
Temperate rainforests are lower and less dense than other kinds of rainforest, in Britannica wording.
How the rain keeps coming
Near the equator, the trade winds of the two hemispheres meet in a band of low pressure: the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
Air is forced to rise. Thunderstorms and heavy rain develop, sometimes towering more than 16 kilometres high.
That rising and sinking circulation is the Hadley Cell. The ITCZ itself moves with the Sun, typically with a delay of around one to two months.
Over a rainforest, transpiration adds still more moisture to the air. NASA describes this as fuelling flying rivers, with about half — or at least one-half, perhaps two-thirds — of the rain falling back on the region.
The result, in a tropical rainforest climate, is high temperatures and year-round rainfall of over 60 mm in every month, in Met Office wording: thick forest, and some of the highest densities of biodiversity seen on land.