Afrcias Climate

Africa has a few different climates due to its size. In the north of the Continent it is quite dry and the Sahara desert dominates an area that is roughly 9,400,000 km² stretching from the Atlantic ocean all the way across to the red sea in the west. The highest temperature recorded in North Africa was 57.8 degrees Celsius in Libya which is also the highest temperature recorded on Earth’s surface. The average rainfall in the Sahara is 10 inches (250 mm) per year. Snakes, scorpions and lizards are quite common in the Sahara. Camels are also often used by the nomads around the edge of the Sahara. The space separating the Sahara desert from the central part of the continent is known as the Sahel, the Sahara is expanding into the Sahel which is causing a lot of problems for the people living there, this process is called desertification The central area in the continent contains a lot of rainforest and open plains known as savannah. These areas have a wet and a dry season this is caused by the movement of the inter-tropical convergence zone also known as the monsoon trough. During the wet season is rains heavily nearly every single day, it transforms open plains around rivers into swamps and gives plants the water which they will need badly during the dry season. They are very few trees in the savannah and they are scattered, the trees have thick bark to protect them from fires. The rainforests in Africa are located mainly around the equator, mainly in central Africa. They make up about 8% of Africa.