It is slightly higher than the surrounding area and has trees and small lakes. Does a little elevation allow air drainage so trees can flourish on the cold steppe?
It is slightly higher than the surrounding area and has trees and small lakes. Does a little elevation allow air drainage so trees can flourish on the cold steppe?
That area was favored by god
Prove me wrong
The whole continent was a big forest before we got here
There are more trees now than before white men showed up, you fricking liar
holy frick you're moronic
>The whole continent was a big forest before we got here
Not a factual statement. Try again
>The whole continent
Of turtle island?
Cope moron, Indians regularly burned down large swathes of land in order to make foraging and hunting easier. Europeans stopped this practice (which arguably may or may not be good, but that's another topic)
So the buffalo used to graze the forest then adapted to gazing the prairie after the Indians burned everything?
I live on the great plains. Much of it wasn't even cleared that long ago, and it was never a forest. What we did have, and some regions still do have, is "parkland", which is grassland with little clumps of trees here and there. The natives here did not practice burning down huge forests, but what they did practice, was "hunting" buffalo by running thousands of them off short cliffs.
I don't mean to somehow argue in favor of our idiot settler forebears. I just want to add that while many native American tribes lived completely differently, many of them were causing their own types of moronic ecological damage.
The great plains was a massive forest 12,000 years ago at the end of the last glacial period
The sandhills of Nebraska look like it was probably desert.
only up to the 100th parallel but yeah
it's a map
Because its higher than the area around it it gets in the way of the clouds or something and makes them rain
It can't be more than 250ft in elevation. It's all low hills.
He's right actually, elevation changes cause updrafts and updrafts cool humid air. Cold air holds less moisture. I live about 2000km north of there so I know what's up.
It only needs to be 250 feet. The effect is called orographic forcing. It means a cloud that is on the verge of precipitating will reach the threshold when it is forced upward by the change in topography.
But if I would have scrolled down I would have seen that it was 600-800 feet. Yeah it’s orographic forcing
OP there is probably a combination of factors that make that land non-ideal for crop-land, so it goes un-used and is allowed to regrow into trees.. it's still probably periodically timbered. If that land is elevated or undulating or if the soil is thin, it's probably not favorable for farming.
North Dakota never had trees. Settlers built sod houses because it cost too much to haul lumber there.
Imagine carving out a life in the godforsaken wilderness, living in literal dirt houses, and then a few generations later people are calling you "privileged"
Imagine holding an original thought.
The eyes of fallen giants provide ample nutrition to the trees, yes
Fricks he smiling about
>What explains this kind of terrain?
its likely glacial remenants. That area didnt get scoured out as much when the glaciers retreated. Its called Turtle mountain
IT'S THE DRIFTLESS REGION YOU IDIOTS
Aren't all the little lakes from glaciers?
Probably a harder rock, a metamorphic, that isn’t the flat cretaceous sediments that make up 99% of the great plains
Harder rock = more resistance to glaciers
Resistent to glaciers = wasn’t flattened
Wasn’t flattened = less soil deposition
Less soil deposition = not cleared for farming
What is your theory on why trees prefer it there?
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/ndnotes/ndn15.asp
>The Turtle Mountains rise about 600 to 800 feet above their surroundings, high enough to receive significantly more precipitation than the surrounding grasslands. As a result of this heavier precipitation, the Turtle Mountains are forested. They cover an area of about a thousand square miles, half in North Dakota, half in Manitoba and this, along with river bottom land and the forested Pembina Hills area to the east, is one of the few wooded areas in the region.
Is probably right. Aggasiz was more northeast and cuts into the Red River Valley area in ND.
cause its elevated rocky terrain, making it useless for farmland unlike the surroundings
Hey stay the frick outta ND
Shutup Mohammed.
whiter than you juan
>Does a little elevation allow air drainage so trees can flourish on the cold steppe?
On mostly flat terrain, yes. A little bit of extra elevation goes a long way. It is also possible for higher elevation areas to actually be a bit warmer than lowlands during temperature inversions, unless the extra elevation is significant enough to cool the average temperature (topographic changes of less than 1000ft don't change the avg temp all that much compared with the land around it). Increased moisture from topographic relief (orographic lift) will also moderate a climate more than its surroundings (dry air cools down quicker than moist air and vice versa), especially during the warm season. If you want to see the extremes of this look no farther than the western US, especially the four corner states. You can go from the sahara to the Canadian climatic zone in less than 25 miles in many locations, and in AZ in particular one location might be 50 degrees F hotter than another location simultaneously and have a difference in humidity values of greater than 60%.
hey i've been there