Landforms, the globe and climate

Most of these words are Sino-Japanese compounds that stand beside a plain native word you already know: 河川(かせん) beside 川(かわ), 陸地(りくち) beside 陸(りく). The compound is not a fancier synonym but the word of maps, textbooks and official warnings, so it is the one you will read in the news. The kanji do most of the work once you know them: 熱帯(ねったい) and 温帯(おんたい) are both climate belts, and 降水量(こうすいりょう) is literally “falling-water amount”. The weather forecaster on television uses exactly this vocabulary, and usually in the polite 〜でしょう.