Climate & Flora

Climate
Turkey extends for 1,600 km/1,000 mi from west to east. A small part of the country, Turkish Thrace, west of the Bosphorus, is geographically in Europe; it borders Greece & Bulgaria on the west & has a similar climate. The rest of the country, Anatolia or Asia Minor, is strictly in Asia.

Anatolia consists of a high plateau, which becomes more mountainous towards the east where the country borders Georgia, Armenia, & Iran. It is enclosed by the Pontic ranges in the north & the Taurus & Anti-Taurus in the south. These mountains & isolated volcanic peaks such as Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey rise to well over 3,000 m/10,000 ft & may carry snow throughout the year.

There are thus considerable differences of climate within Turkey. The narrow coastlands & mountain slopes facing the Black Sea on the north, the Aegean on the west & the Mediterranean on the south have wetter & milder winters than the interior.

The interior plateau has low rainfall & cold or very cold winters. Towards the east the winter cold is similar to that found in parts of the Russian Federation. Except at higher levels, summers in the interior are warm or even hot with occasional thunderstorms. Winter precipitation here falls mostly as snow & towards the east this may lie on the ground for between three & four months.

The coastal regions have much milder winters & here snow is rare. Turkish Thrace, around Istanbul & the Black Sea coast, is a little colder in winter than the west & south coasts. The Black Sea coast has some rain all the year round & east of Samsun this becomes heavy in the summer & autumn. Summers here are warm & humid & the weather is often changeable & cloudy.

South of Istanbul the Aegean & Mediterranean coasts have a typical Mediterranean climate with increasingly dry, hot summers. Here midwinter is the rainy season when most of the disturbed weather occurs.

The hottest & driest area of Turkey in summer is the low-lying plain at the foot of the Taurus Mountains along the border with Syria. Here conditions become typical of the Middle East. The region is a semi-arid steppe with only winter rain.

Except for the eastern part of the Black Sea coastlands, most of Turkey has a very sunny climate even in winter. Average daily sunshine amounts range from three to four hours in midwinter to as much as twelve to thirteen hours in summer.

Although summer temperatures are rather high, the heat is tempered by the low humidity inland & the sea breezes along the coast. Occasionally the nights may be sticky & humid on the Aegean & Mediterranean coasts. The worst feature of the climate is the severe cold experienced in the interior in winter & occasionally in early spring.

Flora
The fact that Turkey is surrounded by four seas, each with its own ecological constitution; & the relatively late development of industry & agriculture has resulted in an phenomenal wealth of plant & animal life within Turkey's borders.

This extraordinary degree of biodiversity was augmented during the Ice Age, when northern animals strayed south seeking warmer climates & many remained in their new homelands. Turkey is also situated on the main migratory routes for birds between Asia, Africa & Europe, thus increasing the number of species found here. Turkey has almost as many species of wild flowers as the rest of Europe combined; of the over 9000 species so far identified more than one third are native to the country, many found nowhere else on earth.

Turkey is regarded as an important gene centre for many cultivated crops, whose wild ancestors can still be found growing in Anatolia. The defence mechanisms & disease resistence of the wild forms tend to be more highly developed than those of the cultivated plants & can be transmitted through biotechnology.

The wild forms remain a fundamental reference source when developing new & improved strains. Turkey is the home of over thirty species of wild wheat, along with barley, chickpeas, lentils, apricots, figs, cherries & many types of nuts. A large number of ornamental flowers were cultivated from Turkish wild forms, including most famously the tulip but also the crocus, snowdrop & lily. Anatolia is similarly rich in fauna, with over 80,000 species. It is the original homeland for the fallow deer, the pheasant & the domestic sheep. Lions, tigers & leopards once prowled freely across the Anatolian steppe. Today, the mountains & national parks still abound with wildlife, such as brown bears, wild boar, lynx, wolves, water buffalo, the occasional leopard & over 400 species of birds, several of them endangered. Turkey's Mediterranean & Aegean coasts provide refuge for the endangered monk seal & the logger-head turtle. Of the world's 300 remaining monk seals, 50 live in Turkish waters.

Floral Regions
Much of the coastal & more temperate areas of Turkey are covered in maquis (dwarf forest) or Red Pines, which require little water to tide them over dry summers. They are, however extremely susceptible to the forest fires which destroy around 20,000 hectares of Turkey's forests annually. At higher altitudes woods of plack pine, fir & cedar grow. The mild Mediterranean climate enables the valleys & lowlands to grow a range of tropical fruit. As tastes in urban centers broaden to include more 'exotic' fruit, the market garden industry has responded by expanding its range which in recent years has included homegrown kiwis, bananas, avocado & mushrooms.

The Aegean region in particular is known for its olives, grapes, cotton & tobacco. The higher slopes of the verdant Black Sea region are thick with beech, oak, maple, alder, Scots Pine & Oriental Spruce, while the narrow coastal strip & lower slopes are used to grow tea, hazelnuts, flax, maize, cherries & plums. All of these plants are suited to a temperate climate with plenty of rain - never a problem in the Black Sea region. Steppe is the most common landscape in Turkey today, stretching all the way from Thrace to the Iran/Iraq border. Thousands of years of deforestation & erosion has increased it from 15% to 35% of the total land area of Turkey.

Steppe is characterised by the diversity of life which it sustains, especially in spring, when the rolling landscape is carpeted in a multicoloured profusion of delicate featured but hardy flowers, including daisies, crocuses, violets & poppies. This landscape has been the inspiration of carpet & kilim weavers for centuries. Much of Turkey's western & central steppe is used for the cultivation of cereals, sunflowers & sugar beet, as well as pasture land for large herds of cattle & flocks of sheep. The further east one moves the more sparse & barren the landscape becomes, with alternating arid, semi-desert lowlands & towering mountain peaks.

Wetlands are extremely valuable ecosystems which are found in abundance in Turkey. Although they do not have the diversity of the steppe, they make up for this in an organic productivity as high as tropical rain forests. By international definition, there are nineteen Grade A wetlands in Turkey, five of which (Kusgolu, Goksu Delta, Sultansazligi, Lake Burdur & Lake Seyfe) are registered as wetlands of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. Rushes & reed, buttercups, water mint, waterlilies & tamarisks are commonly seen plants while the waters teem with plankton, algae & water weeds. As a result of this rich food source, the wetlands are inhabited by large flocks of birds, who require hugh amounts of food relative to body weight in order to survive. Species found include flamingos, wild ducks & geese, teal, herons & tern & numerous endangered species such as the Dalmatian pelican, pygmy cormorant & the slender billed curlew. The Southeast is similarily a haven for threatened species.

Biricek is one of only two places left on earth where the bald ibis nests. Environmental preservation & conservation is in its infancy in Turkey, but many individuals & increasingly the government are aware of the incredible natural assets which Turkey posesses & of the urgency of protecting them. Many international conventions have been signed & many projects are under way to protect threatened species & habitats. The caretta caretta turtle almost lost its breeding ground at Dalyan to a hotel development, but public outrage & international attention had the area declared an Environment Protection Zone. Other areas of the coast are also being protected & studies of their habitats undertaken. Education & research programmes are being put in place by a number of environmental protection organisations.