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Desert, Desertification and Land Degradation
Published in Ajai, Rimjhim Bhatnagar, Desertification and Land Degradation, 2022
The third system is that of the rain shadow (Figure 2.5). In this case, the moisture-laden winds strike the hill, lose their moisture and when they reach the other side of the mountain, they become dry. The rising air masses cool and lose their ability to hold so much moisture, resulting in heavy precipitation on the windward side of the mountain. The water-deficient air masses move down the slope, becoming warmer and regaining their capacity to hold the moisture that is no longer present. Thus, there is very little or no precipitation in the leeward side of the mountains and therefore, this zone is called a rain shadow. The leeward side of the mountain remains water deficient, leading to the formation of deserts called the rain shadow or temperate deserts. Temperate deserts generally have more precipitation than tropical deserts. They are hot in summers and cool in winters. Examples are Sonoran, Chihuahuan and Mojave deserts. The vegetation type is better than that of tropical deserts but still is sparse and mainly consists of shrubs, cacti and other succulents.
Basic Chemical Hazards to Wildlife
Published in Jack Daugherty, Assessment of Chemical Exposures, 2020
Mountain ranges also develop deserts by creating rain shadows on the leeward sides. Moisture-laden winds flow upward over windward slopes, cooling, and losing moisture in the form of rain and snow. Dry air descends the leeward slopes, evaporating moisture from the soil. The Great Basin, a desert of North America, for instance, lies in the rain shadow produced by the Sierra Nevada.
Urban water cycle hydrologic components
Published in Jiri Marsalek, Blanca Jiménez-Cisneros, Mohammad Karamouz, Per-Arne Malmquist, Joel Goldenfum, Bernard Chocat, Urban Water Cycle Processes and Interactions, 2014
Jiri Marsalek, Blanca Jiménez-Cisneros, Mohammad Karamouz, Per-Arne Malmquist, Joel Goldenfum, Bernard Chocat
Rain-shadow areas (mountain ranges such as the Sierra Nevada, the Great Dividing Range in Australia and the Andes in South America) are characterized by conditions similar to those in continental areas with diverse behaviour, but their climatic conditions are not as extreme as in the continental interior areas.
Geochemical evolution of high-pH sodic salt pans in Central Otago, New Zealand
Published in New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics, 2022
Dave Craw, Cathy Rufaut, Dhana Pillai, Gemma Kerr
Marine aerosols are one of the principal sources for components of evaporative salts in Central Otago and as a consequence the leachates from evaporites should have compositions that reflect a seawater dilution trend. Many of the leachates in this study do fall close to that trend with respect to their Na and Cl contents, for example (Figure 9A). Since some of the samples had halite observable at outcrop, this relationship is as expected. However, many of the leachate samples show some deviation from the seawater dilution trend, and substantially more than, for example, the waters of the Sutton Salt Lake at the eastern edge of the semi-arid rain shadow (Figure 1B; Figure 9A). The most prominent deviations from the seawater trend indicate that there is an excess of Na over Cl (Figure 9A).
Deuterium excess and 17O-excess variability in meteoric water across the Pacific Northwest, USA
Published in Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 2020
John Bershaw, Dougal D. Hansen, Andrew J. Schauer
Although there are a growing number of studies on 17O-excess patterns in polar ice and snow (Landais et al., 2008; Risi et al., 2010; Winkler et al., 2011; Landais et al., 2012; Schoenemann et al., 2014), meteoric water on the continental scale (Luz and Barkan, 2010; Li et al., 2015), and in tropical moisture (Landais et al., 2010), patterns of 17O-excess along altitudinal transects across stark changes in climate are not well characterized and understood. Here, we present stable isotope data (d-excess and 17O-excess) from surface water along two altitudinal transects in the Pacific Northwest (Fig. 1) to investigate the relationship between isotopic parameters and both climate and topography. Our results suggest that subcloud evaporation impacts meteoric water d-excess (and 17O-excess) up the windward side of mountain ranges, consistent with altitudinal transects elsewhere (Froehlich et al., 2008; Kong et al., 2013; Bershaw, 2018). However, both d-excess and 17O-excess increase with elevation more than the modeling of subcloud evaporation predicts, raising the possibility that upper tropospheric and/or stratospheric water vapor is influencing the isotopic composition of meteoric water in the mountains (e.g. Bony et al., 2008; Blossey et al., 2010; Galewsky and Samuels‐Crow, 2014; Samuels‐Crow et al., 2014; Salmon et al., 2019). In addition, isotopic differences between transects suggest that the moisture source for precipitation in the Olympic Mountains is significantly different from that in the Coast Range of Oregon. Lastly, we show that both d-excess and 17O-excess are significantly affected by evaporation in the rain shadow of the Cascade Mountains, confirming that 17O-excess can be used in paleoclimate research to constrain aridity.
The contribution of the Chilean mining industry to the achievement of the 17 sustainable development goals
Published in Geosystem Engineering, 2022
In the macrozone Norte Grande and Norte Chico is located in the Atacama Desert that is characterized as the driest in the world with very little rainfall. The driest region of the Atacama Desert is situated between two mountain ranges, the Andes Mountains and the Chilean Coast Range high enough to prevent moisture advection from the Pacific Ocean or the Atlantic, a two-sided rain shadow.