Desert+Home

Welcome to the desert's home page by Ben H and Will D! A desert is a place that receives less than 10 cm of rain each year. When most people think of deserts, they think about a hot, dry, and vast region. While most deserts are, such as the Sahara, deserts can also be polar, such as the Antarctic Desert. Deserts are very common around the world. Nearly 20% of the Earth’s surface is a desert. 6 out of the 7 continents contain at least one desert, amazingly! The Antarctic Desert is larger than every country in the world, excluding Russia, and it is about 1.5 times larger than the United States, and the entire continent of Europe. The Mojave Desert is the largest desert in the US, and stretches across the states of: Utah, California, Arizona, and Nevada. Perhaps the most well known desert, the Sahara is the world’s largest non-polar desert.
 * __ What is a Desert? __**
 * __ Where are deserts found? __**

[[image:biomesfirst11/Deserts_Map.gif width="289" height="179" align="right" caption="Deserts around the world"]]**__ Interesting Facts about Deserts __**

 * Countries with deserts are amongst the wealthiest in the world, because of the oil. Oil and coal found in deserts are the remains of forests that grew on those lands a long time ago
 * Deserts can be created when cities are constructed on fertile land, which keeps the soil from ever having a supply of water, therefore causing desertification
 * In the desert, temperatures in the nighttime drop down to as minimal as -15° Celsius. When the temperatures are at their peak, they can reach up to as high as 50° Celsius.
 * Violent rainstorms have the potential to cause flash floods in the desert. After a storm, the desert might not see any rain for days on end.
 * There are more grains of sand in a cubic foot of sand than people in the world. A desert is a place that receives less than 25.4 cm of rain every year. A dess[[image:biomesfirst11/lightning-desert.jpg width="265" height="232" align="right" caption="Lightning in Desert"]]ert is a very tasty food that you eat!





There are two main desert climates types; hot deserts and cold deserts. Deserts typically get less the n 30cm of precipitation a year. There are two seasons in a desert, the wet and dry seasons. Most of the precipitation fall during the wet season. The precipitation and temperature ranges from desert to desert. The average temperature for El-Oasr el-Akhdar, Egypt in the wet season is about 3.3cm of precipitation, while in the dry season there is only about 0.1cm of precipitaion. The emperature in El-Oasr el-Akhdar is about 17°Celsius In the wet season and about 23°Celsius in the dry season. In Shuwaikh, Kuwait the average temperature in the wet season is The wet and dry seasons are different for every desert. In El-Oasr el-Akhdar, Egypt the wet season is from October to March, and the dry season is from April to September.



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