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> As a result, Iceland is a case study in desertification, with little or no vegetation, though the problem is not heat or drought. About 40 percent of the coun
by amorphid 9y ago
> As a result, Iceland is a case study in desertification, with little or no vegetation, though the problem is not heat or drought. About 40 percent of the country is desert, Dr. Halldorsson said. “But there’s plenty of rainfall — we call it ‘wet desert.’”
At first I thought it was an error to call an area that gets plenty of rain a desert. I thought desert was strictly defined by the amount of rainfall. But maybe that's not correct. The wikipedia article on desert states...
"Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location." [1]
I wonder if there's a stricter definition used in a specific scientific context.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert
- kobeya 9y agoThe etymology of the word (think deserted island) would imply it has more to do with the lack of life than the reason for a lack of life.
- mitchtbaum 9y agoEtymology of desert: from Latin desertus, from desero (“abandon”) From dē- (“away, from”) + serō (“I bind, join”). From Proto-Italic sizō, from Proto-Indo-European si-sh₁-, the reduplicated present of *seh₁- (“to sow”). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desert#Etymology_3 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desert#Etymology_3 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desero#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/desero#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sero#Latin https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sero#Latin
- guelo 9y agoIn verb and adjective form anything can be deserted, a husband deserting his wife, a deserted village. In noun form I've heard of things like food deserts to describe urban area without grocery or restaurants. Also places like Antartica are sometimes described as deserts. Also ocean deserts to describe areas without fish.
- Sharlin 9y agoAntarctica is a desert by the strict "low precipitation" definition. The Dry Valleys are some of the driest places on Earth.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- quotemstr 9y agoRight. That's the sense (solitude) of "desert" in Tacitus's famous quip about the Romans: "they make a desert and call it peace".
- will_brown 9y agoThere is a very famous race series for runners called the 4 Deserts. One race, called the Last Desert, takes place in Antarctica. It may surprise you, like it did me - in fact blew my mind - to learn Antarctica is the largest desert in the World.
- mattrices 9y agoThe soil type in iceland has volcanic parent material with very high carbon content that results in a low nitrogen to carbon ratio so has little nutrients available to support biomass production without adjustments.
- bagacrap 9y agoSo I suppose almost every planet in the galaxy is a desert planet.