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Antarctica is the largest desert on Earth. A desert is defined by how little rain or snow it gets, not by heat, and Antarctica's frozen interior receives less than 5 centimetres a year.

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Geographers usually call a region a desert when it receives less than about 250 millimetres of precipitation a year. By that measure Antarctica, at about 14 million square kilometres, is far larger than the Sahara, the biggest hot desert, at roughly 9.2 million. Very cold air holds little moisture, so even snow is rare inland; the ice sheet grew over millions of years because almost nothing melts. The McMurdo Dry Valleys, ice-free valleys near the Ross Sea, are among the driest places on Earth, and some are thought to have had no rain for around two million years. The Arctic counts as the second-largest desert.

Türkçe oku
Dünya'nın en büyük çölü Antarktika'dır. Çölü belirleyen sıcaklık değil yağışın azlığıdır; Antarktika'nın donmuş iç kesimlerine yılda 5 santimetreden az yağış düşer.

Coğrafyacılar yılda yaklaşık 250 milimetreden az yağış alan bölgelere genellikle çöl der. Bu ölçüte göre yaklaşık 14 milyon kilometrekarelik Antarktika, sıcak çöllerin en büyüğü olan ve 9,2 milyon kilometrekare kadar tutan Sahra'dan çok daha büyüktür. Çok soğuk hava pek nem taşıyamaz, bu yüzden iç kesimlere kar bile seyrek yağar. Buz tabakası, milyonlarca yıl boyunca neredeyse hiçbir şey erimediği için kalınlaştı. Ross Denizi yakınındaki buzsuz McMurdo Kuru Vadileri Dünya'nın en kurak yerleri arasındadır; bazılarına yaklaşık iki milyon yıldır yağmur yağmadığı düşünülür. İkinci en büyük çöl ise Arktik bölgedir.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Antarctica
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