Green forests around me,
I stared at the sky,
The sight of a mountain engaging my eye…
“Hey dad?” I asked,
What’s at the top?
Dad smiled and said, “We’ll climb and won’t stop…”
When we’d started our hike,
I’d felt kind of hot,
But the higher we went, the colder it got!
After a while,
The air got so thin,
It was harder to breathe,
With less oxygen!
The plants were real short,
No more tall trees,
To block out the sun, or sway in the breeze…
Pretty soon I was freezing,
And said, “Let’s go down’
Dad said, “Not yet,” and I started to frown…
We kept climbing higher,
We reached some cold snow,
Where only the birds, and the mountain goats go!
Finally, finally the summit we reached,
The view was so stunning, a bald eagle screeched,
Dad patted my back,
Now I felt fine,
“Welcome,” Dad said,”to the biome alpine!”
The alpine biome exists at high elevations on mountains throughout the world.
Alpine tundra is found above the tree line- it does not contain trees because of the affects of the high altitude (cold temperatures, dry conditions, poor soil).
Some animals that live in alpine tundra are mountain goats, caribou, marmot, and alpaca.
The alpine biome is cold- with temperatures in the warmest months not reaching above 50°F (10° C).
(In the lower parts of the Earth’s atmosphere, the temperature drop with height (called lapse rate) is 6.5° C per 1000 meters,. or in English units, 3.57° degrees Fahrenheit per 1000 feet. Can you figure how much colder it will be at 10, 20, or 30,000 feet?)