Why does it get really cold at night in the desert?

Answer 1

There is nothing to stop the thermal energy (heat) from escaping back into the atmosphere.

Answer 2

I don't know what desert you are from but I used to live in Arizona, and it never gets cold there in the summer at night. Infact it would always stay above 85 or 90. Then pop up 20 degrees during the day!!

Answer 3

Because, unlike in places where there is a ground covering or flora (underbrush, trees) there isn't really much of anything to hold the heat. The sand or ground surface may be warm for awhile, but it doesn't stay for too long.

It also depends on where the deserts are located. Alpine deserts (like the place where I live) get colder at night because of altitude as well.

Answer 4

look into the Gobi wilderness. many of the main well-liked days and the main freezing temps at nighttime. accepted wintry climate temps there can get right down to -forty C. this is butt chilly! this is a typical characteristic of deserts; warm days, icy nights. Even demise Valley in California has wildly various temperatures, day vs nighttime. "On July 10 1913, demise Valley reached 134°F (fifty six.7°C), and this held the record for the optimal measured temperature in the international....In 1913, the comparable 300 and sixty 5 days which observed the main well-liked day, the temperature reached a record low of 15°F (-9°C)."

Answer 5

Due to absence of water vapour in the atmosphere above the deserts,there is not much cloudiness .Because of this there is no greenhouse effect to trap the outgoing radiation from the earth's surface during night.
Water vapour a is powerful absorber of heat and if it is available near the earth's surface, it will absorb the outgoing heat radiation during night and keep the air near the surface warm.
In its absence, surface will cool rapidly to a very low temperature.This is what happens over deserts.

Answer 6

There is no humidity in the air to trap the ground's heat from escaping. Most of our heat on earth is reradiated from the ground up. Black surfaces absorb more of the sun's heat and these surfaces reradiate a higher percentage of heat than lighter surfaces like snow that reflect heat away. I might not have used correct English but I hope you get my point.

Deserts in higher altitudes and higher latitudes will be colder at night like Reno than deserts at lower altitudes and lower latitudes like Las Vegas.

Answer 7

In a word, water. Really dry air, like in the desert, heats up hotter in the sun light and cools down colder at night. In areas with wetter soil, more of the heat from the sun is absorbed by the water to vaporize it into humidity at lower temperatures. The reverse is true at night. Humid air is slower to give up heat in order to condense into dew.

Answer 8

The reason it feels cold is because of the temperature difference. If it is 110 in the day and 80 at night you will feel very cold. If it is 80 in the day you will feel warm or comfortable.
So yes it does get cold at night, but it feels much colder than it really is.

Answer 9

there is nothing to hold heat. The sand reflects all day long so when the sun goes down there is no source of heat.
It also depends on altitude. High deserts get colder.

Answer 10

The biggest factor is the lack of insulating clouds.