- Define and explain What Shapes Climate in your own words
- Use key terms such as latitude accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on What Shapes Climate: discover how latitude, altitude and distance from the sea change temperature and rainfall.
Discover how latitude, altitude and distance from the sea change temperature and rainfall.
Key ideas
Five factors shape a climate
Latitude decides how directly the Sun's rays hit; altitude cools the air as you climb; distance from the sea brings milder, wetter weather near coasts and more extreme temperatures inland; prevailing winds carry warm or cold, wet or dry air; and ocean currents, like the warm North Atlantic Drift, can heat or cool coastlines.
The greenhouse effect is natural — humans are strengthening it
Gases such as carbon dioxide trap some of the Sun's heat, keeping Earth warm enough for life — without them the planet would freeze. Burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests add extra greenhouse gases, trapping more heat and warming the climate. That is why scientists distinguish the natural greenhouse effect from the enhanced one.
Key term — latitude: How far north or south of the equator a place is, measured in degrees — it is the biggest control on temperature.
A climate graph shows temperatures around 27°C all year and heavy rainfall in every month, peaking mid-year. What climate is this, and which biome would you expect?
Read the temperature line first: it stays near 27°C all year, so there is no real winter — this is a low-latitude, tropical location. Read the rainfall bars: every month is wet, so there is no dry season. Hot all year plus year-round heavy rain matches a tropical rainforest climate. Conclude the biome: dense evergreen rainforest, like the Amazon or Congo basins.
Answer: A tropical rainforest climate — constantly hot with heavy rainfall in every month, supporting dense evergreen forest.
- Reading rainfall bars as temperature On a climate graph, the bars are monthly rainfall and the line is temperature — mixing them up flips the whole interpretation.
- Saying 'today is cold, so climate change is wrong' One cold day is weather; climate change is about long-term global averages measured over decades. Local cold snaps still happen in a warming world.
Practice
The sea moderates temperatures, warming the coastal town in winter and cooling it in summer; inland places have more extreme continental climates.
Bars show monthly rainfall (mm); the line shows mean monthly temperature (°C).
Temperature falls with altitude because the air is thinner and under less pressure.
Natural: changes in solar output or volcanic eruptions. Human: burning fossil fuels, deforestation.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "latitude"?
Why does the UK have a milder climate than other places at the same latitude, such as parts of Canada?
Put these in order: condensation, precipitation, evaporation.
- What Shapes Climate: discover how latitude, altitude and distance from the sea change temperature and rainfall.
- Five factors shape a climate: Latitude decides how directly the Sun's rays hit; altitude cools the air as you climb; distance from the sea brings milder, wetter weather near coasts and more extreme temperatures inland; prevailing winds carry warm or cold, wet or dry air; and ocean currents, like the warm North Atlantic Drift, can heat or cool coastlines.
- evaporation: When liquid water gains heat energy and turns into invisible water vapour, rising into the air.
- Watch out for: reading rainfall bars as temperature