Question

Taiga is absent in the southern hemisphere because:

Options

• The suitable climate conditions are absent there.

• Taiga has been removed to make towns and cities.

• No landmass in the latitudes of the Taiga climate.

• None of the above.

Answer 1

No landmass in the latitudes of the Taiga climate.

Explanation:

Taiga (boreal) forests form a continuous belt roughly between about 55°–70°N across Eurasia and North America, where large continental landmasses produce the long, severe winters and short summers that characterize the taiga climate. The southern hemisphere has little continuous land at the equivalent high latitudes (they are mostly ocean; southern continents are narrow), so the continental climate and broad continuous land needed for a taiga belt are absent, and only isolated coniferous forests occur in mountainous parts of southern Chile, New Zealand, and Tasmania, not a true taiga belt.