46 Habitats and the Environment-High

Habitats and the Environment Written by Kira Freed

《栖息地与环境》作者:基拉·弗里德

Introduction Can you imagine a wild polar bear living in Hawaii? How about a palm tree growing in Antarctica? You probably know that these things would never happen, but do you know why not? A habitat is a place where a living thing lives. But it is not just a home. A habitat provides a living thing with the food, water, air, and shelter it needs to survive. It has many parts that all work together. In this book, you will learn about what makes up a habitat and how habitats are different for different living things. By the time you finish reading, you will know why the pictures on this page could not be real.

你能想象一只野生北极熊生活在夏威夷吗? 生长在南极洲的棕榈树怎么样? 你可能知道这些事情永远不会发生，但你知道为什么不可能吗? 栖息地是生物生活的地方。 但它不仅仅是一个家。 栖息地为生物提供生存所需的食物、水、空气和住所。 它有很多部分一起工作。 在这本书中，你将了解栖息地的组成，以及不同生物的栖息地有何不同。 当你读完这本书的时候，你就会知道为什么这一页上的图片不可能是真的。

The Building Blocks of Habitats Earth has many types of habitats. What causes one habitat to be different from another habitat? To answer this question, let's explore the building blocks of habitats. The first building block is latitude. Latitude is a measure of how far a place is from Earth's equator, or middle. The lines that go left to right across a globe show different latitudes. As Earth spins, the Sun's energy warms parts of the planet differently. The latitudes closer to the equator are warmed more than the polar regions, which are far from the equator.

地球上有许多类型的栖息地。 是什么导致一个栖息地与另一个栖息地不同? 为了回答这个问题，让我们来探索栖息地的组成部分。 第一个基石是纬度。 纬度是衡量一个地方距离地球赤道或中心的距离。 从左到右横跨地球的线表示不同的纬度。 随着地球自转，太阳的能量以不同的方式使地球上的部分地区变暖。 靠近赤道的纬度地区比远离赤道的极地地区更温暖。

In each band of latitude, some land is higher than other land. Elevation— how high or low an area is— is the second building block of a habitat. Areas of low elevation are warmed more by the Sun's energy than areas of high elevation, which are cooler. Why is that? The layer of air around Earth is the atmosphere. Think of the atmosphere as a blanket of air. Even something as light as air still has weight and thickness (or density). Close to the ground, the blanket is thick— there is lots of air above it, pressing down— so it holds in more heat. High in the mountains, the blanket of air is thinner. More heat escapes, so it is colder. Do You Know? You might wonder why areas of high elevation aren't warmer than areas of low elevation, since it seems as if they're closer to the Sun. The Sun is incredibly far away— about 150 million kilometers (93 million miles) from Earth. The height of Mount Everest (8,848 meters or 29,028 feet) is a tiny fraction (about .00006) of the distance from Earth to the Sun. That's too small to make a difference in the amount of sunlight it gets.

在每个纬度带中，有些陆地比另一些陆地高。 海拔——一个区域的高低——是栖息地的第二个组成部分。 低海拔地区受太阳能量的影响比高海拔地区更温暖，高海拔地区更凉爽。 为什么呢?地球周围的空气层是大气层。 把大气想象成一层空气。 即使像空气这样轻的东西也有重量和厚度(或密度)。 在靠近地面的地方，毯子很厚——上面有大量的空气向下挤压——所以它能吸收更多的热量。 在高山上，空气的覆盖层更薄。 更多的热量逸出，所以温度更低。 你知道吗?你可能想知道为什么高海拔地区没有比低海拔地区更温暖，因为它们似乎更接近太阳。 太阳非常遥远——距离地球大约1.5亿公里(9300万英里)。 珠穆朗玛峰的高度(8,848米或29,028英尺)是地球到太阳距离的一小部分(约0.00006)。 这对它获得的阳光量来说太小了。

Because some areas are warmer than others, the differences in temperatures create wind. The wind carries moisture (water) between parts of the system. The combination of differences in temperature, wind, and moisture creates vastly different climates all over our planet. Climate is weather patterns over long periods of time— not just days, weeks, or months. Climate is half of the third building block of habitats.

因为一些地区比其他地区更温暖，温度的差异产生了风。 风在系统的各个部分之间携带水分(水)。 温度、风和湿度的差异结合在一起，在我们的星球上创造了截然不同的气候。 气候是长时间内的天气模式，而不仅仅是几天、几周或几个月。 气候是栖息地第三个组成部分的一半。

The other half of the third building block of habitats is land and water features. Almost three-fourths of Earth's surface is water, and almost all of that is in oceans. Earth's land, the other quarter of Earth's surface, is different from place to place. It may be flat, hilly, or mountainous. There may be big lakes, small streams, or very little surface water. Land and water features are as important as climate in building a habitat.

栖息地的第三个组成部分的另一半是陆地和水域特征。 地球表面近四分之三是水，而且几乎都在海洋中。 地球的陆地，即地球表面的另四分之一，因地而异。 它可能是平坦的、丘陵的或多山的。 可能有大湖，小溪流，或者很少的地表水。 在建造栖息地时，土地和水的特征和气候一样重要。