When people think of tropical rainforests; wet, lush, green, exotic and preserved lands come to mind. Unfortunately, the rainforests throughout the world aren't as preserved as we wish they were, once before. We often associate an environmental issue with one particular subject. For tropical rainforests, there's a series of different environmental issues going on, all at once, every day. Climate change (global warming, fossil fuels, greenhouse gas), conservation (ecosystems – biodiversity, habitat destruction, illegal dumping; fishing; forests – clear-cutting, deforestation, illegal logging; natural resources – exploitation of natural resources; species – endangered species, poaching, species extinction, wildlife trade), ozone depletion (CFC), and pollution are some tropical rainforest environmental issues, to name a few. While we boast about what we have done to help the global environment, it's a mere fraction versus the actual damage that we've done and what we continue doing. .
Rainforests are identified by their climate, controlling factors, geographic distribution, distinguishing characteristics and related features. Tropical rainforests coolest months are above 64.42° F and their driest month with at least 2.4 inches of precipitation. High year-round isolation and precipitation of doldrums (ITCZ) cause air to rise along the trade wind coasts. With constant high temperatures; equal length of day and night; lowest annual temperature ranges of 3° F to 5° F; evenly distributed heavy precipitation; and high amount of cloud cover and humidity (Peterson, 231). Both the Amazon Rainforest and Congo Rainforest are identified as tropical rainforests because they share the characteristics previously mentioned.
The Amazon rainforest covers a majority of the Amazon Basin in South America; the rainforest makes up 2,100,000 square miles of the 2,700,000 square miles.