GEOL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Evapotranspiration, Transpiration, Rain Shadow
Document Summary
Sinkholes: when the ground seems to break and drown, are just caves where the roofs have collapsed. Deserts: areas that have extremely low precipitation; often receive less water via precipitation than is lost by evapotranspiration. Transpiration: water lost through trees and plants. Low-latitude deserts: air warms and moves north ->air dries, cools, and sinks ->hot air rises and cools to make rain ->high solar radiation. Middle-latitude deserts: windward (wet) side: wind gets pushed up mountains and air cools and tends to saturate and rain out, leeward (dry) side: like mountains are casting a rainbow shadow over land due to water (rainshadow desert) Dry vs humid climates: higher temperatures mean more evaporation, lower temperatures mean less evaporation, it is possible for deserts to be cool as long as water is evaporating. Carry water only in response to episodes of rainfall (stream is dry when there"s no rain.
