In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sámi word тӯндар meaning "uplands", "treeless mountain tract". Tundra vegetation is composed of dwarf shrubs and grasses, lichens. Scattered trees grow in some tundra regions; the ecotone between the tundra and the forest is known as timberline. The tundra soil is rich in phosphorus. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, Antarctic tundra. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt; the word "tundra" refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Canada; the polar tundra is home to several peoples who are nomadic reindeer herders, such as the Nganasan and Nenets in the permafrost area. Arctic tundra is frozen for much of the year; the soil there is frozen from 25 to 90 cm down.
Instead and sometimes rocky land can only support certain kinds of Arctic vegetation, low growing plants such as moss and lichen. There are two main seasons and summer, in the polar tundra areas. During the winter it is cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C, sometimes dipping as low as −50 °C. However, extreme cold temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south. During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, the top layer of seasonally-frozen soil melts, leaving the ground soggy; the tundra is covered in marshes, lakes and streams during the warm months. Daytime temperatures during the summer rise to about 12 °C but can drop to 3 °C or below freezing. Arctic tundras are sometimes the subject of habitat conservation programs. In Canada and Russia, many of these areas are protected through a national Biodiversity Action Plan. Tundra tends to be windy, with winds blowing upwards of 50–100 km/h. However, it is desert-like, with only about 150–250 mm of precipitation falling per year.
Although precipitation is light, evaporation is relatively minimal. During the summer, the permafrost thaws just enough to let plants grow and reproduce, but because the ground below this is frozen, the water cannot sink any lower, so the water forms the lakes and marshes found during the summer months. There is a natural pattern of accumulation of fuel and wildfire which varies depending on the nature of vegetation and terrain. Research in Alaska has shown fire-event return intervals that vary from 150 to 200 years, with dryer lowland areas burning more than wetter highland areas; the biodiversity of tundra is low: 1,700 species of vascular plants and only 48 species of land mammals can be found, although millions of birds migrate there each year for the marshes. There are a few fish species. There are few species with large populations. Notable animals in the Arctic tundra include reindeer, musk ox, Arctic hare, Arctic fox, snowy owl and polar bears near the ocean. Tundra is devoid of poikilotherms such as frogs or lizards.
Due to the harsh climate of Arctic tundra, regions of this kind have seen little human activity though they are sometimes rich in natural resources such as petroleum, natural gas and uranium. In recent times this has begun to change in Alaska and some other parts of the world: for example, the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug produces 90% of Russia's natural gas. A severe threat to tundra is global warming; the melting of the permafrost in a given area on human time scales could radically change which species can survive there. Another concern is that about one third of the world's soil-bound carbon is in taiga and tundra areas; when the permafrost melts, it releases carbon in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, both of which are greenhouse gases. The effect has been observed in Alaska. In the 1970s the tundra was a carbon sink. Methane is produced when vegetation decays in wetlands; the amount of greenhouse gases which will be released under projected scenarios for global warming have not been reliably quantified by scientific studies.
In locations where dead vegetation and peat has accumulated, there is a risk of wildfire, such as the 1,039 km2 of tundra which burned in 2007 on the north slope of the Brooks Range in Alaska. Such events may both contribute to global warming. Antarctic tundra occurs on Antarctica and on several Antarctic and subantarctic islands, including South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the Kerguelen Islands. Most of Antarctica is too cold and dry to support vegetation, most of the continent is covered by ice fields. However, some portions of the continent the Antarctic Peninsula, have areas of rocky soil that support plant life; the flora presently consists of around 300–400 lichens, 100 mosses, 25 liverworts, around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algae species, which live on the areas of exposed rock and soil around the shore of the continen
Travis Tritt is an American country music artist. His discography comprises 12 studio albums, six compilation albums, 43 singles. Of his studio albums, the highest-certified is 1991's It's All About to Change, at 3× Platinum certification by the RIAA and platinum certification by the CRIA, his first and fourth albums — Country Club, T-R-O-U-B-L-E and Ten Feet Tall and Bulletproof — are all certified double platinum in the US, while 1996's The Restless Kind, 2000's Down the Road I Go and his 1995 Greatest Hits: From the Beginning album are all certified platinum. It's All About to Change is his highest-peaking album on Billboard Top Country Albums, at #2. Of Tritt's fifty-two singles, all but two charted on Billboard Hot Country Songs; this total includes five Number Ones on that chart: "Help Me Hold On", "Anymore", "Can I Trust You with My Heart", "Foolish Pride", "Best of Intentions". "Best of Intentions" is his highest peak on the Billboard Hot 100 at #27, while its follow-ups reached #33 and #39 on the Hot 100.
He has charted three album cuts that entered the lower regions of the country chart based on unsolicited airplay. Tritt has been featured as a guest on eight singles, including two releases by his friend Marty Stuart: "This One's Gonna Hurt You" and "Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best", from 1992 and 1996, he has sung guest vocals on singles for Patty Loveless, Charlie Daniels, Mark O'Connor, comedian Bill Engvall
HMIS Bengal was a Bathurst class corvette of the Royal Indian Navy where she served during World War II. HMIS Bengal was ordered from Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company, Australia for the Royal Indian Navy in 1940, she was commissioned into the RIN in 1942. HMIS Bengal was a part of the Eastern Fleet during World War II, escorted numerous convoys between 1942-45. On 11 November 1942, Bengal was escorting the Dutch tanker Ondina to the southwest of Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. Two Japanese commerce raiders armed with six-inch guns attacked Ondina. Bengal fired her single four-inch gun and Ondina fired her 102 mm and both scored hits on Hōkoku Maru, which shortly blew up and sank. Both Ondina and Bengal ran out of ammunition. Ondina was badly damaged by shellfire and torpedoes, her captain signaled "Abandon ship" before he died. Bengal seeing there was nothing more she could do, sailed away; the other raider, Aikoku Maru, machine-gunned the lifeboats with Ondina's crew aboard, causing some casualties, picked up the survivors from Hōkoku Maru, sailed off, believing that Ondina was sinking.
Ondina's surviving crew reboarded their ship, put out the fires, sailed to Freemantle. Bengal too reached port safely