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Curious Kids<\/a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you\u2019d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n How hot does it get in the desert? \u2013 Henry, age 5, South Bend, Indiana<\/p>\n When you think of a desert, you probably imagine giant waves of sand dunes beneath a blazing Sun. You\u2019d be picturing a hot desert, like the Sahara<\/a> in Africa.<\/p>\n Some of the most scorching temperatures recorded on Earth have been in deserts. The hottest air temperature on the Earth\u2019s surface was 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius)<\/a> in Death Valley, California. The highest ground temperature was 177.4 F (80.8 C)<\/a> in the Lute Desert in Iran.<\/p>\n For comparison, a very hot bath is around 110 F (43 C). So these temperatures are way beyond anything safe for your skin.<\/p>\n What makes some deserts so broiling hot, and why do they exist in the first place? It has to do with how Earth\u2019s atmosphere moves around our planet and interacts with what\u2019s on the ground.<\/p>\n What is a desert?<\/p>\n Climate scientists like me<\/a> define a desert not by temperature but by how much precipitation<\/a> it gets \u2013 any form of water falling from the sky, whether rain, snow or hail. If an area receives less than 10 inches (250 millimeters) of precipitation a year, it is officially a desert<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s nothing in this definition about being hot. In fact, there are cold deserts, too. The biggest desert on Earth is Antarctica<\/a>, where the average winter temperature<\/a> can be as low as -75 F (-60 C) in the interior highlands.<\/p>\n Antarctica is a dry desert \u2013 it took tens of millions of years for the snow underfoot to pile up. Antarctica counts as a desert because it rarely snows there. It\u2019s covered by a large ice sheet that\u2019s the result of tiny amounts of snow accumulating over tens of millions of years. <\/p>\n Where are they, and why?<\/p>\n The equator is an imaginary line wrapped around the middle of the Earth, separating it into two halves: the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Lines of latitude are imaginary rings parallel to the equator that further divide up the hemispheres. Latitude is measured in degrees, starting at 0 degrees at the equator up to 90 degrees at each pole.<\/p>\n If you look at a globe, you\u2019ll notice an interesting pattern. Most of the world\u2019s hot deserts \u2013 including the Sahara, the Arabian Desert<\/a> and Australia\u2019s Great Victoria Desert<\/a> \u2013 are lined up within two horizontal belts around the Earth that lie at roughly 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south of the Equator.<\/p>\n These locations are not a coincidence. They\u2019re related to how the atmosphere moves around Earth. <\/p>\n Globally, the equator gets the most direct sunlight, so the air near ground level there becomes warm and rises. At the poles, the air is very cold and sinks. This continuous rising and sinking motion creates a giant loop of moving air for each hemisphere, almost like a slow\u2011moving conveyor belt in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n Deserts are more likely to form in certain global regions due to atmospheric circulation patterns that bring drier air to ground level. Because the Earth spins<\/a>, the giant moving air loop gets twisted and broken into three smaller loops for each hemisphere<\/a>. As a result of this atmospheric motion, air generally rises at the equator and latitudes around 60 degrees and sinks at the poles and latitudes around 30 degrees.<\/p>\n When air rises, it expands and cools<\/a>. As its temperature goes down, water vapor condenses<\/a> to form precipitation. When air sinks, it compresses and warms up<\/a>, causing water to evaporate and creating dry conditions. <\/p>\n That\u2019s why deserts are found around 30 degrees and near the poles. Those are the places where atmospheric motion causes the air to sink \u2013 resulting in dry desert conditions.<\/p>\n Why does it get so hot?<\/p>\n The deserts near the 30 degrees latitude line can get incredibly hot for three reasons.<\/p>\n The first reason can be found in the clouds. In most parts of the world, moisture in the air forms clouds<\/a>. On a cloudy day, you might notice that clouds block the Sun\u2019s light, helping create cooler temperatures. Because desert air is extremely dry, it lacks this protective shield. With no clouds to provide shade, all of the Sun\u2019s incoming solar energy reaches the Earth\u2019s surface, heating the ground at full intensity.<\/p>\n Sand and rocks heat up quickly under the Sun \u2013 and cool down quickly again at night. Another reason behind these deserts\u2019 high temperatures is what you find below your feet. At the beach, you might notice that the sand feels much warmer than the ocean on a hot day. That\u2019s because of the difference in their specific heat<\/a>, a term scientists use to describe how much energy something needs to change its temperature.<\/p>\n Water has a very high specific heat and therefore takes a lot of energy \u2013 and hence a long time \u2013 to warm up. Conversely, rocks and sand have low specific heats; they absorb the energy from the Sun and warm up very fast. For the same reason, they can\u2019t hold onto that warmth when the Sun goes down. Once night falls, all that heat escapes right back into space. This is why a desert can go from roasting at noon to freezing at midnight<\/a>.<\/p>\n A final reason those hot deserts stay hot has to do with the way water removes heat when it evaporates. In nondesert places, plants release water into the air, cooling the surrounding area. Scientists call this phenomenon evaporative cooling<\/a>. It\u2019s the reason you can feel cold when you get out of a pool even on a warm day.<\/p>\n In deserts, the ground is dry and there are very few plants, so almost no evaporative cooling happens. Without this natural cooling system, the Sun\u2019s heat stays trapped at ground level, making the daytime desert feel scorching.<\/p>\n How global warming is changing the desert<\/p>\n Because our planet is warming up<\/a> due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels<\/a> \u2013 coal, oil and natural gas \u2013 and cutting down forests<\/a>, deserts are experiencing some major shifts.<\/p>\n In many parts of the world, global warming makes deserts hotter, drier and dustier<\/a>. It also makes them spread outward into places that used to have more plants. When regular land turns into a dry desert, it\u2019s called desertification<\/a>.<\/p>\n Desert boundaries are expanding and shrinking at different locations due to climate change. Climate change doesn\u2019t affect every place the same way, though. In some desert regions, shifting wind patterns are actually bringing more rain than usual, leading to a partial greening of the desert. This has been observed in the Thar Desert<\/a> in India and Pakistan, the southern fringe of the Sahara Desert<\/a> and some deserts in northern and northwestern China<\/a>. Such major shifts in desert conditions change the ecosystem, making it harder for native animals and plants, which are adapted<\/a> to the desert environment, to survive.<\/p>\n Deserts are some of the most extreme, beautiful and finely balanced places on Earth. Understanding how the atmosphere and the land work together reveals how even the hottest places on our planet are connected to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/file-20260712-57-43fbuh.jpg\")
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