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TROPICS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The part of the Earth's surface between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn; characterized by a hot climate
Synonyms:
Torrid Zone; tropical zone; tropics
Classified under:
Nouns denoting spatial position
Instance hypernyms:
climatic zone (any of the geographical zones loosely divided according to prevailing climate and latitude)
Derivation:
tropic (relating to or situated in or characteristic of the tropics (the region on either side of the equator))
Context examples:
He is either a foreigner or has lived long in the tropics, for he is yellow and sapless, but tough as whipcord.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
He showed me also, in one of his books, the figures of the sun, moon, and stars, the zodiac, the tropics, and polar circles, together with the denominations of many plains and solids.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It saddens me and gladdens me, the gait with which we are leaving San Francisco behind and with which we are foaming down upon the tropics.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
El Niño shifts the growing season around the tropics, causes winter drought in Africa and South America, and changes the timing of monsoon rainfalls in Asia.
(El Niño linked to widespread crop failures, SciDev.Net)
In the Atlantic Ocean, a giant ‘conveyor belt’ carries warm waters from the tropics into the North Atlantic, where they cool and sink and then return southwards in the deep ocean.
(A new study is the first to measure the time lags between changing ocean currents and major climate shifts., University of Cambridge)
While research has shown higher temperatures from climate change and weather extremes will cut food production, especially in the tropics, scientists are increasingly finding that rising greenhouse gas levels are a threat to food quality as well.
(Planet-Warming Gases Make Some Food Less Nutritious, Study Says, Steve Baragona/VOA)
For the current study, the researchers looked at ten bird groups currently limited to the tropics, predominantly in areas that were once part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana (Africa, South America and Australasia).
(Past climate change pushed birds from the northern hemisphere to the tropics, University of Cambridge)
Add this up over billions of leaves in very sunlit, leafy places, especially the tropics, and it means there is a bunch more soil moisture stored up underground, so much so that climate models predict rainfall events will saturate the ground and more rain will run into rivers.
(Plant physiology will be major contributor to future river flooding, National Science Foundation)
Their analysis shows that condensation around tiny particles significantly increased cloud formation and warmed the surrounding air, intensifying the so-called deep convective cloud systems that are responsible for causing thunderstorms in the Amazonian tropics.
(Tiny pollutants intensify storms in the Amazon, SciDev.Net)
While the effect of the historical conversion of forests to cropland was clear in the scientific analysis for the mid-latitudes, it was less clear in the tropics, where the amount of cropland conversion is smaller and where large-scale oceanic variability plays a more significant role.
(Forests minimize severe heat waves, NOAA)
