why does the desert go cold at night?

Answer 1

Because the desert is on the equator the widest part of the earth and in the day it is closest to the sun, and at night it is furthest away from the sun as it turns on its axis.

Answer 2

Most deserts lie in areas with little rain fall. The skies are clear night and day. The sun is hot during the day and in the night there is no cloud blanket to retain the heat. The reason there is sand in most deserts is because rocks which expand during the heat of the day contract in the cold of the night and break up.

Answer 3

Desert areas are very dry with little humidity and clouds and these are what makes the night time warm in areas that are moist. Cloud cover and water vapor in the air act like a blanket at night time and keep the heat in. Therefore, in the desert, at night time, all of the sun's radiation from the daytime escapes back into space. That is why places that are dry have a greater diurnal temperature change than places with a higher humidity.

Answer 4

Absence of what is called greenhouse effect over deserts is the main reason for the rapid cooling.Water vapour is a powerful absorber of the heat which is emitted by the earth's surface.It is because of this property of water vapour that the atmosphere near the Earth's surface does not cool rapidly when there is a layer of low and medium cloud cover present in the atmosphere.The heat radiation from the Earth's surface is readily absorbed by the cloud layer and re-radiated back to the Earth's surface with the result that there is less cooling of the surface and atmosphere near the surface becomes warm and sultry.Due to the absence of water vapour over deserts , there is no cloud formation also. Hence there is a rapid cooling of the surface in the night over the deserts due to the escape of heat from the surface into the atmosphere.

Answer 5

First off a desert is not by definition a hot place. There are deserts in Anartica! Deserts are places that are barren(dry). But a desert usually does see large temperature drops at night. The reason is due to how dry the atmosphere is. moist air cools slower than dry air. Dry air is a requirement for deserts and that is why they are cold at night.

Answer 6

Omex,
Have you ever been to Las Vegas? It definitely cools off at night, but it doesn't get cold. Las Vegas is right in the middle of a desert and the temperature does change, but not to a big degree.
The fact is the desert doesn't get colder at night, it actually gets hotter in the day because of the reflection and the absorption of the sun's rays. That's pretty cool don't you think.
TDCWH

Answer 7

Lack of cloud cover means that the heat absorbed by the surface rocks and sand is lost rapidly.
Remember that it is radiation from the Sun that heats up the desert and without the Sun and cloud cover there is nothing to keep the heat in.

Answer 8

The sky above a desert is usually very clear. So during the day the ground
absorbs most of the sunlight that strikes it -- heating the surrounding
air. At night the reverse happens. The hot ground (and air) radiate the
heat absorbed during the day back into space causing the temperature to
drop rather rapidly. So it is all about converting visible radiation into
heat (infrared radiation) and re-radiating that back into space.

Answer 9

confident, because of the fact the air is dry, loss of humidity. Water takes an prolonged time to warmth up and funky off, so no remember if it extremely is humid and warm for the period of the day, then it continues to be heat and muggy at nighttime. even no remember if it extremely is heat for the period of the day in the wasteland, as quickly because of the fact the solar contraptions and no longer warms the air, it directly cools because of the fact there is little moisture to hold the warmth.

Answer 10

Well there is a thing called the greenhouse effect, and clouds trap in the heat just like a greenhouse would, so without the clouds to hold in the heat, then there is no possible way for it to be warm.