CDS (II) 2020 General Knowledge · Question 64 of 120

Correct — A, Belarus. Tundra is the treeless belt that lies poleward of the coniferous forest, and it needs a polar or subpolar position to exist — in the Koeppen scheme it is the ET climate, where the warmest month averages above 0 degrees Celsius but stays below 10. Belarus is nowhere near that. The country sits at about 53 degrees north, is landlocked in eastern Europe, has a temperate continental climate moderated by the Baltic 257 km away, and its natural vegetation is forest: pine over half the wooded area, with spruce, birch, alder, oak and aspen, and nearly a third of the country under the large forest tracts called pushchas. Its highest point, Dzyarzhynskaya Hara, is only 346 metres, so there is no alpine tundra either. The other three all reach the Arctic — Alaska for the United States, the vast north for Russia, and the far north and Arctic archipelago for Canada.

• (b)USA — The United States has tundra in northern and western Alaska, on the North Slope above the Brooks Range, as well as alpine tundra in the Rockies. Alaska is the reason a mid-latitude country appears on a tundra list.
• (c)Russia — Russia holds the largest tundra area in the world, a belt running along virtually its whole Arctic coast from the Kola Peninsula to Chukotka, and it merges southward into the taiga.
• (d)Canada — Canada's tundra covers Nunavut, the northern Northwest Territories, northern Quebec and Labrador, and the Arctic islands — roughly the whole country north of the treeline.

Tundra is the coldest of the major biomes: a treeless zone of mosses, lichens, sedges and dwarf shrubs growing over permafrost, with a short growing season and low precipitation. Arctic tundra occupies the land between the polar ice and the northern edge of the coniferous forest; alpine tundra occurs above the tree line on high mountains at any latitude. Because it is largely snow-covered for much of the year, tundra has the highest albedo of the major terrestrial ecosystems.

The whole item is decided by asking which of the four countries touches the Arctic. Russia, Canada and the United States do — the last through Alaska, which is the detail the question is really testing. Belarus does not touch any ocean at all. A useful cross-check is latitude: the tundra belt broadly begins beyond about 60 to 65 degrees north, while Belarus lies between roughly 51 and 56 degrees. Mountains are the other route to tundra, and Belarus is one of the flattest countries in Europe, averaging 162 metres above sea level, so that door is closed too.

• Belarus lies at about 53 degrees north, is landlocked, and has a temperate continental climate; pines make up 50.2 per cent of its forest area and its highest point is 346 m.
• In the Koeppen classification tundra is ET — warmest month above 0 but below 10 degrees Celsius; below 0 in every month gives EF, the ice-cap climate.
• Russia has the world's largest tundra area; Canada's tundra covers everything north of the treeline; in the United States it is confined to Alaska and to alpine zones.
• Tundra vegetation is mosses, lichens, sedges and dwarf shrubs over permafrost, with no trees.
• Of the major ecosystems, tundra has the highest albedo, followed by taiga, then tropical deciduous and finally tropical evergreen forest.

• Assuming a cold-sounding European country must have tundra — the belt is Arctic, and Belarus is temperate forest.
• Forgetting that the United States qualifies only through Alaska.
• Treating tundra and taiga as the same thing; taiga is coniferous forest, tundra has no trees at all.

As an odd-one-out on countries or regions, or as a biome-to-characteristic match.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?

  • (a)Tundra — dense evergreen forest
  • (b)Taiga — coniferous forest
  • (c)Steppe — permafrost
  • (d)Savannah — lichens and mosses

  Answer(b) Taiga — coniferous forest. The taiga is the boreal coniferous belt lying just south of the treeless tundra.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  In the Koeppen classification, the tundra climate is denoted by which one of the following codes?

  • (a)EF
  • (b)ET
  • (c)Dfc
  • (d)BWh

  Answer(b) ET — the warmest month averages above 0 but below 10 degrees Celsius; EF is the ice-cap type where no month rises above 0.