Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Shifts in the ITCZ associated with the seasonal variability of the Hadley circulation cause monsoons. The sinking branches of the Hadley cells give rise to the oceanic subtropical ridges and suppress rainfall; many of the Earth's deserts and arid regions are located in the subtropics coincident with the position of the sinking branches.
The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification BWh and BWk) is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert climates are dry and hold little moisture, quickly evaporating the already little rainfall they receive.
The consistently warm, dry, and sunny conditions of the horse latitudes are the main cause for the existence of the world's major hot deserts, such as the Sahara Desert in Africa, the Arabian and Syrian deserts in the Middle East, the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, all in the Northern ...
Cold deserts, sometimes known as temperate deserts, occur at higher latitudes than hot deserts, and the aridity is caused by the dryness of the air. Some cold deserts are far from the ocean and others are separated by mountain ranges from the sea, and in both cases, there is insufficient moisture in the air to cause much precipitation.
A great portion of the world's deserts are within the subtropics, as this is where the semi-permanent subtropical anticyclone resides (typically inland on the southwest sides of continents). Areas bordering warm oceans (typically on the southeast sides of continents) have hot and wet summers with frequent (but brief) convective rainfall ...
The subtropical ridge is a warm core high-pressure system, meaning it strengthens with height. [23] Many of the world's deserts are caused by these climatological high-pressure systems. [24] Some climatological high-pressure areas acquire regionally based names.
A great portion of the world's deserts are located within the subtropics, due to the development of the subtropical ridge. Within the humid monsoon regions in the subtropics such as Northern Vietnam (including Hanoi), a wet season is seen annually during the summer, which is when most of the yearly rainfall falls.
This phenomenon causes an extremely large daily temperature range. Specifically, temperatures in a low elevation inland desert can reach 40°C to 50°C during the day, and drop to approximately 5°C at night; the daily range is around 30 to 40°C. [3] There are some other reasons for significant changes in temperature in tropical deserts.