[108] Desertification is caused by such factors as drought, climatic shifts, tillage for agriculture, overgrazing and deforestation. [34], As the mountains are eroded, more and more sand is created.
The Thar Desert near the India/Pakistan border is of this type. When they descend on the leeward side, they warm and their capacity to hold moisture increases so an area with relatively little precipitation occurs. [131] Another woman explorer was Freya Stark who travelled alone in the Middle East, visiting Turkey, Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Persia and Afghanistan, writing over twenty books on her experiences. Most shrubs have spiny leaves and shed them in the coldest part of the year.
[119], The potential for generating solar energy from the Sahara Desert is huge, the highest found on the globe. [6] Semi-deserts are regions which receive between 250 and 500 mm (10 and 20 in) and when clad in grass, these are known as steppes. [102] An early historical account is that of Marco Polo (c. 1254–1324), who travelled through Central Asia to China, crossing a number of deserts in his twenty four year trek.
[38], During a sandstorm, the wind-blown sand particles become electrically charged.
It is a feature of continental interiors, the western sides of continents, and the leeward side of tall mountain ranges.
", "A drought resistance-promoting microbiome is selected by root system under desert farming", "Agricultural Societies In Pre-European Times: Southwestern U.S. and Northwestern Mexico", "Research news: UC Desert Research and Extension Center celebrates 100 years", "5 of the World's Biggest Solar Energy Plants", "Giant solar plants in Negev could power Israel's future", "Identifying regions on Mars for past life signs", "Areas of Sand Seas on Titan from Cassini Radar and ISS: Fensal and Aztlan", Map with biodiversity scenarios for desert areas, from the Global Deserts Outlook, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&oldid=983907705, Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments, Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 16 October 2020, at 23:53. Once fertility has been built up, further crop production preserves the soil from destruction by wind and other forms of erosion. Let me show you Facts about Air Masses if you want to know more about one aspect of meteorology. They usually receive precipitation from 250 mm (10 in) to 500 mm (20 in) but this can vary due to evapotranspiration and soil nutrition. [7] Many types have thorns and protective spines that keep animals from getting at their stores of water. What Are The Special Adaptations Of Desert Plants? The deserts of North America have more than one hundred playas, many of them relics of Lake Bonneville which covered parts of Utah, Nevada and Idaho during the last ice age when the climate was colder and wetter. While there they shed their skins a number of times and retain the remnants around them as a waterproof cocoon to retain moisture. These places owe their profound aridity (the average annual precipitation is often less than 40 mm or 1.5 in) to being very far from the nearest available sources of moisture and are often in the lee of mountain ranges. They form downwind of copious sources of dry, loose sand and occur when topographic and climatic conditions cause airborne particles to settle. 2) Cold Desert Climate Location. There are three types of desert climates in the Köppen climate classification: a hot desert climate (BWh), a cold desert climate (BWk) and a mild desert climate (BWh/BWn).
[53], Other non-sandy deserts consist of exposed outcrops of bedrock, dry soils or aridisols, and a variety of landforms affected by flowing water, such as alluvial fans, sinks or playas, temporary or permanent lakes, and oases.
Most of the deserts lie on the western sides of the continents because of dry trade winds that blow to the western parts of the continents.
The sunlight can be obliterated and it may become as dark as night at ground level.
[88] Mammals living in cold deserts have developed greater insulation through warmer body fur and insulating layers of fat beneath the skin. This belt is known as the subtropical ridge, and it is an area of high atmospheric pressure. [7] Polar deserts are a particular class of cold desert. The cold desert climate is BWk. This picks up particles of sand and dust and wafts them aloft in sand or dust storms. Where these are found, oases can occur. Some are deciduous, shedding their leaves in the driest season, and others curl their leaves up to reduce transpiration. In some years, some deserts may experience no rainfall at all. Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods. [133], The American poet Robert Frost expressed his bleak thoughts in his poem, Desert Places, which ends with the stanza "They cannot scare me with their empty spaces / Between stars – on stars where no human race is. The distance between their crests corresponds to the average length of jumps made by particles during saltation. Lizards and snakes are the most numerous in arid regions and certain snakes have developed a novel method of locomotion that enables them to move sidewards and navigate high sand-dunes. In "eolian deflation", the wind continually removes fine-grained material, which becomes wind-blown sand. Desert climate or Arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification: BWh "hot desert climate" and BWk "cold desert climate") is a type of climate where precipitation is generally less than 250 millimetres (10 in) a year. Some scientists do not consider these as true deserts.
[55] In the Colorado Plateau it is water that has been the eroding force. They travelled over large areas with their herds, moving to new pastures as seasonal and erratic rainfall encouraged new plant growth. [47] The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System under the Sahara Desert is the largest known accumulation of fossil water. Some areas that experience precipitation exceeding 200 mm annually but lose more water through evapotranspiration also fall under the desert climate.
Many other metals, salts and commercially valuable types of rock such as pumice are extracted from deserts around the world. Shallow caves are sometimes formed at the base of cliffs by this means. [2] Because desert air is dry there is little moisture to hold onto the heat of the day. Moist warm air rises over the land, deposits its water content and circulates back to sea. In summer, the maximum temperature may soar to 400C and the hottest regions sometimes experience temperatures exceeding 450C. [122], Many centuries later, both world wars saw fighting in the desert. They are mostly in areas remote from the sea where most of the moisture has already precipitated from the prevailing winds. Other water from the river is piped to urban communities but all this has been at the expense of the river, which below the extraction sites no longer has any above-ground flow during most of the year. Examples of regions within the cold desert climate are the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, the Patagonian Desert in Argentina, the Kaptana Desert in Central Asia, the Karagiye Depression in Kazakhstan, the Great Basin Desert in the United States, and the Tabernas Desert in Spain. [93], Invertebrates, particularly arthropods, have successfully made their homes in the desert. The largest hot desert is the Sahara in Africa which spans the whole width of the continent. They reduce visibility and can remain in the atmosphere for days on end, conveyed by the trade winds for distances of up to 6,000 km (3,700 mi). Leaching by ground water can extract ore minerals and redeposit them, according to the water table, in concentrated form. [37] Denser clouds of dust can be formed in stronger winds, moving across the land with a billowing leading edge. [3] This saves valuable energy: they do not need to chase, fight or catch their prey.
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