Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as "an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammelled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." [41] Wilderness designation helps preserve the natural state of the land and protects flora and fauna by prohibiting development and providing for non-mechanized recreation only.
The largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara, covers 9 million square kilometres (3.5 × 10 ^ 6 sq mi) and contains several ergs, such as the Chech Erg and the Issaouane Erg in Algeria. [5] Approximately 85% of all the Earth's mobile sand is found in ergs that are greater than 32,000 km 2 (12,355 sq mi), [ 6 ] the largest being the Rub' al ...
Deserts, rain forests, plains, and other areas—including the most developed urban sites—all have distinct forms of wildlife. While the term in popular culture usually refers to animals that are untouched by civilized human factors, most scientists agree that wildlife around the world is (now) impacted by human activities.
The Nama Karoo of Namibia has the world's richest desert fauna. [8] The Chihuahuan desert and Central Mexican matorral are the richest deserts in the Neotropics. [9] The Carnarvon xeric shrublands of Australia are a regional center for endemism. [1] The Sonoran and Baja deserts of Mexico are unusual desert communities dominated by giant ...
Many examples of convergent evolution have been identified in desert organisms, including between cacti and Euphorbia, kangaroo rats and jerboas, Phrynosoma and Moloch lizards. [82] Deserts present a very challenging environment for animals. Not only do they require food and water but they also need to keep their body temperature at a tolerable ...
The Gobi Desert is the fastest expanding desert on Earth, as it transforms over 3,600 square kilometres (1,400 square miles) of grassland into wasteland annually. [58] Although the Gobi Desert itself is still a distance away from Beijing, reports from field studies state there are large sand dunes forming only 70 km (43.5 mi) outside the city.
Many of the world's deserts are caused by these climatological high-pressure areas, [14] within the subtropics. This regime is known as a semiarid/arid subtropical climate, which is generally in areas adjacent to powerful cold ocean currents. Examples of this climate are the coastal areas of Southern Africa and the west coast of South America. [15]
The Arabian Desert’s sunshine duration index is very high by global standards: between 2,900 hours (66.2% of daylight hours) and 3,600 hours (82.1% of daylight hours), but typically around 3,400 hours (77.6% of daylight hours). Thus clear-sky conditions with plenty of sunshine prevail over the region throughout the year, and cloudy periods ...