 You are clear for launch. And with that, shut down your visors, O2 on, and prepare for ignition to O2. You can copy that and um... All right, Mr. Ruchoff here. Now so far we reviewed the significant landforms of Europe. Now what we're going to do is we're going to examine the climate and the weather effects of Europe. One of the major factors of Europe's climate is a North Atlantic drift. Now if you look at the latitude of most of Europe, it's about the same latitude as Canada, but we find that Europe's weather is much warmer. And the reason why Europe is much warmer is because of something called the North Atlantic Drift. The North Atlantic Drift is actually a continuation of the warm waters that come out of the Gulf Stream, come along the eastern coast of the United States, and then starts to move. You could say it drifts across the Atlantic, the North Atlantic, thus the North Atlantic Drift, and brings these warm ocean currents over to Europe. Because of the warm ocean currents of the North Atlantic Drift, what happens is it actually creates a marine west-closed climate in the British Isles and the northwest portions of Europe. Now as we move further east away from the North Atlantic Drift into eastern Europe and Russia, we get into areas to have a humid continental climate. Now in the northern parts of the Scandinavian Peninsula and northern Russia, we find a subarctic climate with a boreal force. And in Russia, these boreal force are known as the Tyaga, which literally means land of tiny sticks. Now if we go down in the southern portion of Europe around the Mediterranean Sea, we get a climate that is actually named after it, the Mediterranean climate. This is the same climate we find in southern California. In fact, in the 1960s, a lot of clean eastwood western movies were actually shot in Italy because Italy has this Mediterranean climate, which is the same as the American Southwest. These westerns actually were called spaghetti westerns. So by now we should be able to describe the significant landforms of Europe. We talked about those in our last lesson, and we just talked about its climate. So now let's look at some of the ways that mankind is interacted with its environment in Europe. In one example is what we find in the Netherlands. A problem that the Dutch have, and the Dutch is the term we use for someone from the Netherlands, is that 25% of the Netherlands actually lies below sea level. This is quite problematic for a country that lies right on the coast of the North Sea. Now we often think of dikes or dams in the Netherlands to prevent being flooded, but it's far more than that. For hundreds of years, the Dutch have actually been reclaiming land from the sea. Literally, they've been making more land out of what used to be the sea. They do this through what they call the polders. The first step of the polders is building a dam. Then what they do is they pump out the water out of the area that's being reclaimed. Then when the water is removed from that area, then what they'll do is they'll plant plants that actually absorbs the salt out of the ground. And after five years of letting the plants leach the salt out of the soil, this land is actually ready to be used by the Dutch. Today, one sixth of the land of the Netherlands is land that has been reclaimed from the sea. These two maps here shows us how much land has actually been claimed by the polders. Now, when we look at how long mankind has been in Europe, it's easy to understand how Europe has been affected for mankind over a long, long time. Today, there are few places in Europe that have been untouched or changed by humans. One of the effects of mankind's activities has been deforestation, which is the cutting down of Europe's trees. Trees have been cleared to make room for cities, roads, and to get out resources. Of course, they've also been cut down for lumber. So after as many years today, Europe must import forest products from other regions of the world. Pollution has also been a major reason for the loss of so much of Europe's forests. Because of factories and cars, air pollution in Europe has become an issue for not only its people, but for its forests. The resulting air pollution in the air combines with moisture and then falls down as acid rain. This acid rain then weathers the forest, making the trees more vulnerable to insects and disease. After a while, the trees die off. Acid rain also runs off into the rivers and lakes and can kill the aquatic life there. The effects are especially harsh in Eastern Europe, where coal is used more than any other forms of energy. Thus, it is the forest in Eastern Europe that have been most affected. 35% of Hungary's forest, 73% of the Czech Republic and Slovakian forest, and an astonishing 82% of the Polish forest have been lost due to this acid rain problem. Now, while coal is the primary source of electric energy in Eastern Europe, for the rest of Europe, oil and natural gas is the important energy source. Now, fortunately for some countries such as Norway and the United Kingdom, they have sizable oil and natural gas deposits that lie underneath the North Sea. Russia also has a very large oil reserves. And other European countries are leading producers of nuclear energy. 75% of France's electricity is produced by nuclear power plants like these shown here. But nuclear energy can have drawbacks if not properly washed after. In 1986, the Soviet Union found this out the hard way in a place known as Chernobyl. Now, due to a number of human errors, the reactor melted down, exploded and released massive amounts of radiation across the city and into the air. The winds then carried the radiation to neighboring countries and caused large areas to have to be evacuated. Now, even today, the city of Pripyat remains abandoned and an area of almost 2,000 square miles are restricted except for very short visits in order to limit your radiation exposure. Now, what is so interesting about Pripyat is that the people had no time to pack up their belongings, so the city is left nearly intact despite not a single person living there. Now, while Europe's forest may be strained, Europe is blessed with a large area of fertile lands known as the North European Plain. Its fertility is provided by lows, which is a fertile windblown soil. In the south of Europe, there are also fertile oils which are resulted of alluvial soils which are soils deposited by rivers. In addition to the farmland of the North European plains, there are many coastal areas that are good for fishing. Now, another important natural resource is lumber. Now, despite the fact that in areas such as Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland, it has many depleted forests, the forests in Scandinavia and Russia are still very productive. And then there's a resource you probably haven't heard of, which is called peat. This is an energy source that is used in places such as Finland where there are few trees. Peat is the decaying remains of plants and water. Europeans are able to mine the peat from these peat or swamp bogs, such as what is shown here, by burning them much like they would burn coal to be able to create energy. So now you should be able to identify the significant landforms of Europe, describe the climate of Europe and describe many of the effects of how mankind has interacted with the environment of Europe. Okay, keep on learning.