--- title: Climate zones and why they are where they are — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Climate zones and why they are where they are», a lesson of the geography course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Sunlight does the same on the round Earth: near the equator it falls almost straight down and heats hard, near the poles i --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/) / Climate zones and why they are where t… # Climate zones and why they are where they are Lesson 21 of the geography course of Mova's primary school: 19 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/). - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/1/) — Sunlight does the same on the round Earth: near the equator it falls almost straight down and heats hard, near the poles it comes in low and slanting and heats weakly. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/2/) — That is why the world has belts of climate: hot tropics around the middle, temperate zones with real seasons further out, and cold polar lands at the top and bottom. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/3/) — The belts are bent by other things too. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/4/) — The ocean warms slowly and cools slowly, so coasts are milder than the middle of a continent; mountains are colder the higher you climb; and the side of a mountain away from the wet wind stays dry. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/5/) — Earth's axis is tilted, so for half the year the north leans towards the Sun and has summer while the south has winter, and then they swap. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/6/) — That tilt, not the distance from the Sun, makes the seasons. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/7/) — In Europa Universalis 5 a whole location gets one climate label, like a stamp. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/8/) — The real map is messier: a valley and the mountain above it, or a coast and a town 300 km inland, can have very different weather in the same province. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/10/) — Earth's axis is tilted by about 23.4 degrees, and that tilt, not the distance from the Sun, causes the seasons. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/11/) — Tropical rainforests grow mostly close to the equator, in the Amazon, the Congo basin and South-East Asia, where strong sun heats moist air, which rises, cools and drops heavy rain nearly every day. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/12/) — Many of the world's biggest hot deserts, such as the Sahara, the Arabian and the Australian deserts, lie at about 20 to 30 degrees north or south of the equator. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/13/) — The temperate zones lie between the tropics and the polar circles, with clear seasons that are neither very hot nor very cold for long. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/14/) — Inside the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, at about 66.6 degrees, there is at least one day a year when the Sun does not set and one when it does not rise. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/15/) — Britain is much milder in winter than Labrador in Canada, even though both lie at similar latitudes, because warm ocean water and westerly winds from the Atlantic reach Britain. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/16/) — Places deep inside continents have hotter summers and colder winters than coasts at the same latitude, which is why Moscow's winters are much colder than London's. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/17/) — Temperature usually falls by about 6.5 degrees Celsius for every 1,000 metres you climb, which is why Kilimanjaro, close to the equator, has had snow and glaciers on top, though they are shrinking fast. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/18/) — A Mediterranean climate has hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters, and it is found not only around the Mediterranean but also in California, central Chile, South Africa's Cape and south-western Australia, and olives, which need hot, dry summers and mild winters, grow well in it. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/19/) — The side of a mountain range facing away from the wet wind is often dry, which is called a rain shadow (that side is called the leeward side), and the Atacama Desert in Chile lies partly in the rain shadow of the Andes. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/21-climate-zones-and-why-they-are-where-they-are/20/) — Australian children have Christmas in summer because in December the southern hemisphere leans towards the Sun. - ← previous: [Canals: Suez, Panama and the shortcuts](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/20-canals-suez-panama-and-the-shortcuts/) - next →: [Winds, monsoons and ocean currents](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/22-winds-monsoons-and-ocean-currents/) - ↑ back to [Geography](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/geography/)