Rainforests are forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s characterized by high rain

Rain

Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...

fall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm (68-78 inches). The monsoon trough

Monsoon trough

The monsoon trough is that portion of the Intertropical Convergence Zone which extends into or through a monsoon circulation, as depicted by a line on a weather map showing the locations of minimum sea level pressure, and as such, is a convergence zone between the wind patterns of the southern and...

, alternatively known as the intertropical convergence zone

Intertropical Convergence Zone

The Intertropical Convergence Zone , known by sailors as The Doldrums, is the area encircling the earth near the equator where winds originating in the northern and southern hemispheres come together....

, plays a significant role in creating the climatic conditions necessary for the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's tropical rainforests.

Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 are indigenous

Indigenous (ecology)

In biogeography, a species is defined as native to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention. Every natural organism has its own natural range of distribution in which it is regarded as native...

 to the rainforests. It has been estimated that there may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganism

Microorganism

A microorganism or microbe is a microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters, or no cell at all...

s still undiscovered in tropical rainforests.