Cold+Deserts

=Cold Deserts=

Introduction:
Biomes is defined as the major communities in our environment. One of the many biomes are cold deserts. Cold deserts usually appear in Antarctica, Greenland, and Nearctic realm. This biome is not like hot and dry deserts. Temperature is really cold up to -2 to 4 degrees Celsius. Snows occur in the winter but rain occurs during Spring season and they fall up to 10 inches. Cold deserts are not as common but are likely to be found in North America.

**Geographic Regions and Abiotic Factors:** Cold deserts are known as polar deserts. They are characterized for receiving less than 10 inches of rain or snow per year. The cold deserts of the world are located throughout the planet. Atacama (Peru), Gobi (China), Great Basin (USA), Iranian (Iran), Namib (West Africa), Takla Makan (W.China), and Turkestan (Middle East) are the major cold deserts. Although they exist throughout the world, they are mostly located near the Arctic part of the world. All of these deserts are covered heavily in sand dunes and pebbles. There are also occasional sand dunes and mountain ranges.

These deserts are known for cold winters with snowfall and rain throughout winter and also summer. They have short, moist, and moderately warm summers with long, cold winters. There is excessive snowfall in the winter, and the soil is heavy and full of salt.

Animals in deserts, hot and cold, have trouble thriving in deserts. In cold deserts, animals burrow themselves into holes to survive the harsh weather. Plants that grow in the Arctic regions are also adapted to the extreme cold. The plants have a summertime growing season, which is very short in the Arctic. // Exqusite Safaris in the Himalaya //

**Flora:** Vegetation that grows in cold deserts is deciduous of more and less spiny leaves. Plants are covered in cold deserts about 10 percent. As it snows in cold deserts plants are hard to grow, therefore spiny leaves starts to fall off.

// Deciduous tree that spiny leaves are less //

Facts:
Cold desert are the environment has 10 inches or snow per year. It never rises 50 degrees in summertime. This place is hard for the plant to growing and for animal to survive. There are some animal have the fear and body able to service cold weather to living there are such as Lizards, Peruvian fox, Onsager.

The entire animal with coats of fur and warm blood then they can maintain a stable temperature. They're as well too adapted to deal with freezing winters. The plant in cold desert just looks at same with plant on land, they also have leaves, which can prevent or protect them. Their shallow and widely spread root systems help absorb as much water as possible. However, desert environments are antithetical to plants.

// Cold deserts receive their moisture in the form of snow   //

**Reference:** "Cold Deserts of the World." MBGnet. 5 July 2003. Web. 11 Nov. 2010. <@http://www.mbgnet.net/sets/desert/cold.htm>. "Desert Biomes." Blue Planet Biomes. 8 Oct. 2006. Web. 11 Nov. 2010. <@http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/desert.htm>.