Desert | Definition, Climate, Animals, Plants, & Types
网页2024年9月11日 · Desert, any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation. It is one of Earth’s major types of ecosystems, supporting a community of plants and animals specially adapted to the harsh environment. In deserts, trees are usually absent, and shrubs or herbaceous plants provide only very incomplete ground cover.
Desert - Wikipedia
网页A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain, but it may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by …
Desert - National Geographic Society
网页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 …
Desert Biome - National Geographic Society
网页2023年10月19日 · Deserts are extremely dry environments that are home to well-adapted plants and animals. The main types of deserts include hot and dry deserts, semi-arid deserts, coastal deserts, and cold deserts.
Deserts Explained - National Geographic Society
网页2023年10月19日 · Only about 20 percent of deserts are covered by sand. The driest deserts, such as Chile's Atacama Desert, have parts that receive less than two milimeters (0.08 inches) of precipitation a year. Such environments are so harsh and otherworldly that scientists have even studied them for clues about life on Mars.
desert summary | Britannica
网页desert, Large, extremely dry area of land with fairly sparse vegetation. It is one of the Earth’s major types of ecosystems. Areas with a mean annual precipitation of 10 in. (250 mm) or less are generally considered deserts. They include the high-latitude circumpolar areas as well as the more familiar hot, arid regions of the low and mid ...
Desertification facts and information - National Geographic
网页2019年5月31日 · About 2 billion people live on the drylands that are vulnerable to desertification, which could displace an estimated 50 million people by 2030. Where is desertification happening, and why?
Why are deserts dry? - Live Science
网页2023年4月23日 · When that fog moves over land, the moisture stays in the air instead of falling as rain. This can create deserts that abut the ocean, such as the Atacama in Chile, one of the driest places on...
20.1: Deserts - Geosciences LibreTexts
网页2022年9月3日 · A desert is a region of land that is very dry because it receives low amounts of precipitation (usually in the form of rain but may be snow, mist or fog), often has little coverage by plants, and in which streams dry up unless they are supplied by water from outside the area.
Desert: Mission: Biomes - NASA Earth Observatory
网页Desert biomes are the driest of all the biomes. In fact, the most important characteristic of a desert is that it receives very little rainfall. Most deserts receive less than 300 mm a year compared to rainforests, which receive over 2,000 mm. That means that the desert only gets 10 percent of the rain that a rainforest gets!