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Published in:
1984 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
North American deserts
Author : Harold E. Dregne
Published in: Deserts and arid lands
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Included in: Professional Book Archive
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The deserts of North America are distributed over northern Mexico and the western United States between about 23° and 45° north latitude [Fig. 1]. They owe their existence to a combination of causes. The orographic [rain-shadow] effect is primarily responsible for the aridity of the Chihuahuan Desert. In the Great Basin, there is a winter maximum in rainfall. In the Chihuahuan Desert and the Sonoran Desert, the rainfall maximum comes in summer.