A desert is not just sand
Deserts cover about one third of the Earth’s land surface. What makes an area a desert is rainfall, not temperature: it receives less than roughly 250 mm of rain a year. That is why the largest desert in the world is icy Antarctica, not the hot Sahara.
Types of deserts
- hot, such as the Sahara or the Arabian Desert,
- cold, such as the Gobi, where winter temperatures fall below -30°C,
- polar, meaning Antarctica and the Arctic,
- coastal, such as the Atacama in Chile or the Namib in Africa.
approx. 1/3
of the land surface is desert
approx. 9 million km²
is covered by the Sahara
56.7°C
was recorded in Death Valley
Sahara
The largest hot desert in the world. Only part of it is dunes; the rest is stony plains and mountains.
Atacama
One of the driest places on Earth. Some weather stations have recorded no rain for decades.
Błędów Desert
Poland’s own “desert” in Lesser Poland. Its sands were left by a glacier and are slowly being overgrown by vegetation.
| Desert | Continent | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Antarctica | Antarctica | polar |
| Sahara | Africa | hot |
| Gobi | Asia | cold |
| Atacama | South America | coastal |
How to survive in a desert
Desert plants and animals have developed clever ways of coping with a lack of water:
- cacti store water in fleshy stems and have turned their leaves into spines,
- camels can go for many days without drinking,
- the fennec fox releases excess heat through its large ears,
- many animals hunt at night, when it is cooler.
In the desert, water is the most precious thing, and shade comes right after it.
Travellers’ rule
No. In hot deserts the temperature can drop by several dozen degrees at night, and in cold and polar deserts it is freezing for most of the year.
There is no true climatic desert, but the Błędów Desert is the largest area of drifting inland sand in Central Europe.
This is the process of desertification. Droughts, deforestation and overgrazing all contribute to it.
