Myth vs Reality: Desert Climates

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory.

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA

 

except:

·       Image of Antarctic snow dunes courtesy of Mark Fahnestock, University of Maryland, College Park

·       Sea creature illustration copyright The National Library of Israel, Shapell Family Digitization Project _and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Geography – Historic Cities Research Project

·       Image of clouds off Namibian coast courtesy of Chelys

·       Image of dunes in the Namib Desert courtesy of the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch

·       Namibian dune photo courtesy of Wikimedia user Alcazarfr

·       Photo of the Mandara Oasis in Libya courtesy of Rudolph Baumann

·       Photo of Astrophytum ornatum cactus courtesy of Wikimedia user Stan Shebs

·       Photos of desert plants courtesy of Wikimedia user Halfalah and Dr. Eric Christian (NASA)

·       Photo of fishhook barrel cactus courtesy of Susan Lynn Peterson

·       Photo of Ubari Oasis in Libya courtesy of Wikimedia user Sfivat

·       Image of alluvial fan in Takla Makan Desert courtesy of the USGS EROS Data Center Satellite Systems Branch

·       Photos of salt-covered croplands courtesy of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

 

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

Written by Andrea Gianopoulos

Designed by Marc Lussier

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Text, Myth Versus Reality. Myth, All deserts are hot and dry.

 

A table in which Myth is on the left and Reality is on the right.

 

Text, Reality, Deserts are characterized by a lack of precipitation and sparse to no vegetation. Antarctica, the coldest place on Earth, contains abundant water trapped in the form of ice, but it receives less than 2 inches of precipitation per year in the middle of the continent. With so little precipitation and almost no vegetation, Antarctica is the largest desert on Earth.