Aerion O'Kelley Week Three - Deserts

Death Valley National Park. Source: National Parks (2017, July 17)

This weekend I visited Death Valley. In the search of a desert, I could not find a more famous example. What I had learned about deserts having infrequent precipitation couldn't have been more correct. There has literally been entire years of no precipitation, and the average rainfall per year is only 1.9cm.

It was hot. Incredibly hot. As this is the middle of summer here in California, the average air temperature was over 110, and the ground seemed to be on fire. I read that the highest ground temperature recorded was 201 degrees Fahrenheit (NPS, n.d.) in 1972, and I can believe it! You could see many desert specific terrain features as you drove through the park, with the wind and rain shaping the desert landscape.

The terrain has evidence of flash flooding everywhere, in fact there was flooding that damaged at least one road during my visit. As dry as this desert tends to be, rain with a lack of soil absorbtion means that even small amounts of rain will collect, combine, and eventually carve the landscape. Silt and sand are everywhere, with very few colors that are not manmade.

Much of Death Valley's air and climate is due to its location near mountains. Because of the direction of climates coming in from the ocean, the air is compressed on the opposite side of the mountain range and released of all the moisture. As the air begins to reach Death Valley, it has already likely depleted much of the moisture in it from the compression, and little to no moisture from the ocean reaches the desert. This phenomenon is known as "rainshadow," and it is incredibly strong as there is not just one but four mountain ranges between this desert and the ocean!

The shape of Death Valley doesn't help either. It is a long narrow basin, and tends to reflect and trap any heat back in on itself. Even at night, it was incredibly warm, barely dropping below the 80s! The lack of moisture and high heat has made it a very inhospitable place for most life, and is a stereotypical, if not a supertypical desert.

National Parks (2017, July 17). Death Valley National Park. Retrieved from https://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/death-valley-national-park

NPS. (n.d.). Death Valley National Park Weather. Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/weather-and-climate.htm