What is the average sunlight in a desert

What is thought to have caused the ice ages. How is a hygrometer used. Q: What is the amount of sunlight in a desert biome? Write your answer Related questions. How much sunlight does the desert biome get? Amount of sunlight in freshwater biome? What is the amount of sunlight the marine biome gets? Which biome gets the least amount of rainfall?

Which biome has the least amount of presipitation? What determines the temperature of a biome? Which biome gets nearly the same amount of precipitaition as the desert biome? What biome has the least amount change in temperature? What is a biome for a desert? What abiotic factors describe the desert biome? Which biome or ecosystem has the climate with least amount of rain?

How large is the desert biome? What would the biome of a desert be? What biome receives the least amount of rainfall? Which biome is central Australia located?

A good example is the Atacama of Chile. The cool winters of coastal deserts are followed by moderately long, warm summers. The average rainfall measures cm in many areas. The maximum annual precipitation over a long period of years has been 37 cm with a minimum of 5 cm. The soil is fine-textured with a moderate salt content. It is fairly porous with good drainage. Some plants have extensive root systems close to the surface where they can take advantage of any rain showers.

All of the plants with thick and fleshy leaves or stems can take in large quantities of water when it is available and store it for future use. In some plants, the surfaces are corrugated with longitudinal ridges and grooves. When water is available, the stem swells so that the grooves are shallow and the ridges far apart. As the water is used, the stem shrinks so that the grooves are deep and ridges close together.

The plants living in this type of desert include the salt bush, buckwheat bush, black bush, rice grass, little leaf horsebrush, black sage, and chrysothamnus. Some animals have specialized adaptations for dealing with the desert heat and lack of water. Some toads seal themselves in burrows with gelatinous secretions and remain inactive for eight or nine months until a heavy rain occurs. Amphibians that pass through larval stages have accelerated life cycles, which improves their chances of reaching maturity before the waters evaporate.

Some insects lay eggs that remain dormant until the environmental conditions are suitable for hatching. The fairy shrimps also lay dormant eggs. Other animals include: insects, mammals coyote and badger , amphibians toads , birds great horned owl, golden eagle and the bald eagle , and reptiles lizards and snakes. These deserts are characterized by cold winters with snowfall and high overall rainfall throughout the winter and occasionally over the summer. They occur in the Antarctic, Greenland and the Nearctic realm.

They have short, moist, and moderately warm summers with fairly long, cold winters. The winters receive quite a bit of snow. The mean annual precipitation ranges from cm. Annual precipitation has reached a maximum of 46 cm and a minimum of 9 cm. The heaviest rainfall of the spring is usually in April or May. In some areas, rainfall can be heavy in autumn. The soil is heavy, silty, and salty. It contains alluvial fans where soil is relatively porous and drainage is good so that most of the salt has been leached out.

The degree and intensity of sunlight in a given spot helps shape its microclimate and thus profoundly affects plants and animals. One thing all deserts have in common is that they are arid, or dry. Most experts agree that a desert is an area of land that receives no more than 25 centimeters 10 inches of precipitation a year. The amount of evaporation in a desert often greatly exceeds the annual rainfall. The exact opposite happens in the summer when they get more hours of sunlight per day.

This is called the urban heat island effect. It is less pronounced in desert cities than cities built in heavily forested areas. New York was built on wetland habitat, and Atlanta was built in a wooded area.

They may be only slightly warmer than the surrounding desert. Deserts can hold economically valuable resources that drive civilizations and economies.

The most notable desert resource in the world is the massive oil reserve s in the Arabian Desert of the Middle East. More than half of the proven oil reserves in the world lie beneath the sands of the Arabian Desert, mostly in Saudi Arabia.

The oil industry draws companies, migrant workers, engineers, geologist s, and biologist s to the Middle East. Desertification Desertification is the process of productive cropland turning into non-productive, desert-like environments.

Desertification usually happens in semi-arid areas that border deserts. Human activities are a primary cause of desertification. These activities include overgrazing of livestock , deforestation , overcultivation of farmland, and poor irrigation practices. Overgrazing and deforestation remove plants that anchor the soil. As a result, wind and water erode the nutrient -rich topsoil.

Hooves from grazing livestock compact the soil, preventing it from absorbing water and fertilizer s. Agricultural production is devastate d, and the economy of a region suffers. The deserts of Patagonia , the largest in South America, are expanding due to desertification. Patagonia is a major agricultural region where non-native species such as cattle and sheep graze on grassland. Sheep and cattle have reduced the native vegetation in Patagonia, causing loss of valuable topsoil.

More than 30 percent of the grasslands of Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia are faced with desertification. People often overuse natural resources to survive and profit in the short term, while neglecting long-term sustainability.

Madagascar, for instance, is a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Seeking greater economic opportunities, farmers in Madagascar engaged in slash-and-burn agriculture. This method relies on cutting and burning forests to create fields for crops. Unfortunately, at the time farmers were investing in slash-and-burn agriculture, Madagascar experienced long-term droughts.

With little vegetation to anchor it, the thin topsoil quickly eroded. Rapid population growth also can lead to overuse of resources, killing plant life and depleting nutrients from the soil. Since the s, Lake Chad has shrunk to half its size. Desertification has severely reduced the wetland habitats surrounding the lake, as well as its fishery and grazing lands. Desertification is not new. Millions of people had to leave their farms and seek a living in other parts of the country.

Desertification is an increasing problem. Every year, about 6 million square kilometers 2. The Sahara Desert crept kilometers 39 miles south between and South Africa is losing million metric tons short tons of topsoil each year. Many countries are working to reduce the rates of desertification. Trees and other vegetation are being planted to break the force of the wind and to hold the soil. Windbreak s made of trees have been planted throughout the Sahel , the southern border region of the Sahara Desert.

These windbreaks anchor the soil and prevent sand from invading populated areas. They anchor the drifting sand with a gridlike network of straw fences. Straw is poked partway into the sand, forming a pattern of small squares along the contours of the dunes. The resulting fences break the force of the wind at ground level, stopping dune movement by confining the sand within the squares of the grid. New technologies are also being developed to combat desertification. Nanoclay keeps the sand moist, clumping it together and preventing it from blowing away.

Deserts Get Hotter Rising temperatures can have huge effects on fragile desert ecosystems. Global warming is the most current instance of climate change. Human activities such as burning fossil fuel s contribute to global warming. In deserts, temperatures are rising even faster than the global average. This warming has effects beyond simply making hot deserts hotter. For example, increasing temperatures lead to the loss of nitrogen , an important nutrient, from the soil. Heat prevents microbe s from converting nutrients to nitrate s, which are necessary for almost all living things.

This can reduce the already limited plant life in deserts. Climate change also affects rainfall patterns. Climate scientists predict that global warming will lead to more rainfall in some regions, but less rainfall in other places.

Areas facing reduced precipitation include areas with some of the largest deserts in the world: North Africa Sahara , the American Southwest Sonoran and Chihuahuan , the southern Andes Patagonia , and western Australia Great Victoria. In literature and in legend, deserts are often described as hostile places to avoid.

Today, people value desert resources and biodiversity. Communities, government s, and organizations are working to preserve desert habitats and increase desert productivity. Hot and Cold Deserts The largest hot desert in the world is the Sahara, which is 9 million square kilometers 3. It isn't the hottest place on Earth, though. The highest temperature on Earth was recorded there: The largest polar desert is Antarctica, at 13 million square kilometers 5 million square miles. Antarctica boasts the lowest official temperature recorded on Earth: Rising from the Ashes The desert city of Phoenix, Arizona, is named for the mythical desert bird that burns to death only to be reborn, rising from its own ashes.

The city of Phoenix was built on top of the ruins of canals built by the Hohokam people between and CE. The Hohokam used the canals to irrigate their crops. Modern-day residents also rely on an extensive canal system to provide irrigation. Devil of a Storm Dust devils are common in hot deserts. They look like tiny tornadoes, but they start on the ground rather than in the sky.

When patches of ground get very hot, the heated air above them begins to rise and spin. This whirling column of hot air picks up dust and dirt. These spinning columns of dirt can rise hundreds of feet in the air. Freak Floods Deserts are defined by their dryness. However, flash floods take more lives in deserts than thirst does. Also called industrial agriculture. Also called Ancestral Puebloans. Carbon dioxide is also the byproduct of burning fossil fuels. Also called the Wet Sahara.

Also called hydroelectric energy or hydroelectric power. Monsoon usually refers to the winds of the Indian Ocean and South Asia, which often bring heavy rains.

Native American usually does not include Eskimo or Hawaiian people. Also called a salt flat, sink, or salt pan. Also called a playa, sink, or salt pan. Also called a midlatitude desert.

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