Talk:Desert climate

Antarctic Dry Valleys

Although the polar regions are generally have very low precipitation, evaporation is usually slight enough that extant areas of ice and snow don't ordinarily lose more snow than they get from precipitation, ancient or modern, or even blowing in from ice sheets. The Antarctic Dry Valleys have landforms characteristic of other deserts -- internal drainage, intermittent streams and hypersaline salt lakes -- except that the salt lakes are frozen. They are in what would be rainshadow zones -- except that the area is so cold that they would better be described as "snowshadow" zones. Such water as appears is seasonal meltwater from nearby glaciers -- and not true precipitation. --Pbrower2a (talk) 05:04, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

very informative Abhaygavini (talk) 07:39, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

City lists and gallery-like section gone, per the Manual of Style

By request, I have swept in and wikified the article. In this article's case, that meant eliminating the city lists (which were not referenced anyway) and the gallery-like chart section at the end of the article. No charts were saved in this article's case as there was already enough imagery within the article, and no room for more along the margins without compromising its format. This brings the article into tolerance with wikipedia standards, and sets it up for improvement to GA, someday, once all the content has inline references. Thegreatdr (talk) 14:49, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Yemen highlands and Northwest & Central Somalia seem misclassified

How come these regions are classified as having the same climate as the Sahara or the Rub Al Khali?? This seems rather ridiculous if one does not notice the substantial climatic difference between those regions and proper deserts.

Examples of the landscape in said regions:

Yemeni highlands: http://www.lavoixduyemen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Ibb1.jpg

Northwestern/Central Somalia: http://images.travelpod.com/tripwow/photos4/ta-061c-ca58-0981/xasow-world-world+1152_13445963386-tpfil02aw-28038.jpg

It would be more appropriate to place them under Bsh than Bsw..Wadaad (talk) 00:11, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Would it be appropriate to have climate charts for places that fit the following categories:

1. An site (such as Mecca or Khartoum) that is undeniably in the BWH category (hot all year) 2. A site that is undeniably in the BWK category (somewhere in the Gobi or Takla Makan) 3. An ambiguous site on temperature, fitting BWH on criteria of barely having a winter but not having a hot summer, like Lima, Peru.

This would be easier than for steppe climates where there would be zones of summer or winter drought to complicate things.Pbrower2a (talk) 19:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

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Mild desert climates

Is there official criteria for what qualifies as a "mild desert climate", or is it just an arbitrary classification?

UltraSnowstorm (talk) 01:12, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

It is definitely arbitrary after checking and searching for many sources. The Bwn is originally used in Chilean climate classifications to describe the desert climate at coastal areas in which the n denotes for frequent fog. However, they never mention the thermal criteria for what constitutes a "mild desert climate". As well, in some descriptions for the climate of Chile, they classify the Mediterranean climate as Csbn, indicating a warm summer Mediterranean climate with frequent fog, making the n used as a more to describe a particular climate rather being one based on precipitation or temperature criteria that the other letters in the koppen climate classification uses. Checking the editing history, I believe the addition is completely unsourced and completely arbitrary. Ssbbplayer (talk) 16:02, 9 December 2018 (UTC)

I have a personal interest in some of these mild desert climates, due to their very pleasant temperature ranges. They have extremely little difference in temperature between summer and winter, as well as between day and night (very unlike the other two desert types). Take for instance the climate of Walvisbaai (and indeed a large swathe of the Namibian coast) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walvis_Bay#Climate where year round the average maximum is between 15 and 20C and the average minimum between 10 and 15C, with both frost and temperatures over 35C virtually inexistent. Despite being climatologically very unlike both Bwk and Bwh (apart from the absence of precipitation), they are variously classified as either (very much depending on the used criteria). Given this difference, it shouldn't be hard to define some criteria to differentiate mild from hot and cold (i.e. based on definitions on the coldest and warmest months, like in temperate climates).143.176.94.161 (talk) 14:52, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Problem was that in the past, no publications exist that clearly defined mild from hot and cold. After searching, it seems that mild desert climate is rather subjective since the Koppen classification only defined hot and cold but never one for mild. Putting additional classifications to Koppen without sources would be WP:OR. Ssbbplayer (talk) 01:11, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

Desert climates

Some cold desert climates do not have cold winters depending on isotherm used. Also hot desert climates may have very cold winters depending on the isotherm used.

Also hot desert climates can be cold if the -3c isotherm is used. Also Tennerife doesn't have very warm summers.

The 0c or -3c only reflects on the temperature of the coldest month but the 18c isotherm reflects on every month. Using the 0c or -3c isotherm a cold desert climate may have only 1 month colder than a hot desert but a hot desert may have all the months colder.

You just cant use 1 month to decide if a place is "hot" or "cold" you have to use all the the months. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Theultimateboss123 (talk • contribs) 12:23, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Oasis and river

Can I find "oasis" and "river" in the article? cf., Nile Delta - 211.131.37.92 (talk) 00:40, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

"Frozen desert" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Frozen desert has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 November 9 § Frozen desert until a consensus is reached. Thepharoah17 (talk) 06:48, 9 November 2025 (UTC)