![]() This last feature is seen in sections of Africa and Arabia. These locations feature some of the highest annual average temperatures recorded on Earth, exceeding 30 ☌ (86 ☏), up to nearly 35 ☌ (95 ☏) in Dallol, Ethiopia. Some desert in the tropics consistently experience very high temperatures all year long, even during wintertime. This includes the record of 56.7 ☌ (134.1 ☏) in Death Valley, which is currently considered the highest temperature recorded on Earth. The world absolute heat records, over 50 ☌ (122 ☏), are generally in the hot deserts, where the heat potential can be the highest on the planet. ![]() ![]() Hot-month average temperatures are normally between 29 and 35 ☌ (84 and 95 ☏), and midday readings of 43–46 ☌ (109–115 ☏) are common. This makes hot deserts present in every continent except Antarctica.Īt the time of high sun (summer), scorching, desiccating heat prevails. Hot desert climates are found across vast areas of North Africa, Western Asia, northwestern parts of the Indian Subcontinent, interior Australia, the Southwestern United States, south-eastern coast of Spain, northern Mexico, the coast of Peru, and Chile. In these locations, stable descending air and high pressure aloft clear clouds and create hot, arid conditions with intense sunshine. Hot desert climates ( BWh) are typically found under the subtropical ridge in the lower middle latitudes or the subtropics, often between 20° and 33° north and south latitudes. If the area's annual precipitation is less than half the threshold (50%), it is classified as a BW (desert climate), while 50–100% the threshold results in a semi-arid climate. The precipitation threshold (in millimetres) involves first multiplying the average annual temperature in ☌ by 20, then adding 280 if 70% or more of the total precipitation is in the high-sun summer half of the year (April through September in the Northern Hemisphere, or October through March in the Southern), or 140 if 30–70% of the total precipitation is received during the applicable period, or 0 if less than 30% of the total precipitation is so received there. To determine whether a location has an arid climate, the precipitation threshold is determined. The official weather station in Death Valley, United States reports 60 mm (2.4 in) annually, but in a 40-month period between 19 a total of just 16 mm (0.63 in) of rainfall was measured. Some locations in the Sahara Desert such as Kufra, Libya, record an even drier 0.86 mm (0.034 in) of rainfall annually. Most desert/arid climates receive between 25 and 200 mm (1 and 8 in) of rainfall annually, although some of the most consistently hot areas of Central Australia, the Sahel and Guajira Peninsula can be, due to extreme potential evapotranspiration, classed as arid with the annual rainfall as high as 430 millimetres or 17 inches.Īlthough no part of Earth is known for certain to be rainless, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile, the average annual rainfall over a period of 17 years was only just 5 millimetres (0.20 in). To delineate "hot desert climates" from "cold desert climates", a mean annual temperature of 18 ☌ (64.4 ☏) is used as an isotherm, so that a location with a BW type climate with the appropriate temperature above this isotherm is classified as "hot arid subtype" ( BW h), and a location with the appropriate temperature below the isotherm is classified as "cold arid subtype" ( BW k). There are two variations of a desert climate according to the Köppen climate classification: a hot desert climate ( BWh), and a cold desert climate ( BWk). Covering 14.2% of earth's land area, hot deserts are the second most common type of climate on earth after the polar climate. ![]() 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 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. ![]()
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