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Amazon River rain forest in Peru. Tropical rainforests are hot and wet. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C (64 °F) during all months of the year. [4] Average annual rainfall is no less than 1,680 mm (66 in) and can exceed 10 m (390 in) although it typically lies between 1,750 mm (69 in) and 3,000 mm (120 in). [5]
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
The Amazon rainforest alongside the Solimões River, a tropical rainforest. These forests are the most biodiverse and productive ecosystems in the world. Proportion and distribution of global forest area by climatic domain, 2020 [1] A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense community of trees. [2]
A portion of the temperate rain forest region of North America, the largest area of temperate zone rainforests on the planet, is the Pacific temperate rain forests ecoregion, which occur on west-facing coastal mountains along the Pacific coast of North America, from Kodiak Island in Alaska to northern California, and are part of the Nearctic realm.
The biodiversity of plant species is the highest on Earth with one 2001 study finding a quarter square kilometer (62 acres) of Ecuadorian rainforest supports more than 1,100 tree species. [55] A study in 1999 found one square kilometer (247 acres) of Amazon rainforest can contain about 90,790 tonnes of living plants.
One of the world's largest and most dense rainforests is the Amazon rainforest in South America. Rainforests are disappearing across the world, and at an alarming rate in Brazil. Since the 1980s, more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rainforest has fallen victim to deforestation. [6]
Most of the interior of the Amazon basin is covered by rainforest. [6] The dense tropical Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. [2] It covers between 5,500,000 and 6,200,000 square kilometres (2,100,000 and 2,400,000 sq mi) of the 6,700,000 to 6,900,000 square kilometres (2,600,000 to 2,700,000 sq mi) Amazon biome.
Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's plant and animal species live in tropical rainforests. Tropical seasonal forests , also known as moist deciduous , monsoon or semi-evergreen (mixed) seasonal forests, have a monsoon or wet savannah climates (as in the Köppen climate classification ): receiving high overall rainfall ...