Dictionary Definition
arid adj
1 lacking sufficient water or rainfall; "an arid
climate"; "a waterless well"; "miles of waterless country to cross"
[syn: waterless]
2 lacking vitality or spirit; lifeless; "a
technically perfect but arid performance of the sonata"; "a
desiccate romance"; "a prissy and emotionless creature...settles
into a mold of desiccated snobbery"-C.J.Rolo [syn: desiccate, desiccated]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
From etyl laPronunciation
- a UK /ˈæ.ɹɪd/ /
Extensive Definition
In general terms, the climate of a local or region is
said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe lack of
available water, to the
extent of hindering or even preventing the growth
and development
of plant and animal life. As a result,
environments subject to arid climates tend to lack vegetation and
are called
xeric or desertic.
Juba, South Sudan is an Arid land.
Concepts
The expression 'available
water' refers to water in the soil in excess to the wilting
point. The air over a hot desert may actually contain
substantial amounts of water vapor
but that water may not be generally accessible to plants, except
for very specialized organisms (such as some species of lichen). 'Lack of water' refers
to use by plants. The water that is actually present in the
environment may be sufficient for some species or usages (such as
climax
vegetation), and grossly insufficient for others. Aridity, the
characteristic nature of arid climates, may thus depend on the
use of the
land. Regards to the presence of life, what is more important
than the degree of rainfall is the fraction of precipitation
that is not quickly lost through evaporation or runoff.
Attempts to quantitatively describe the degree of aridity of a
place has often led to the development of aridity
indexes. There is no universal agreement on the precise
boundaries between classes such as 'hyper-arid', 'arid', 'semi-arid',
etc.
Geographical distribution
If different classification
schemes and maps differ in their details, there is a general
agreement about the fact that large areas of the Earth are
considered arid. These include the hot deserts located broadly in
sub-tropical regions, where the accumulation of water is largely
prevented by either low precipitations, or high evaporation, or
both, as well as cold deserts near the poles, where water may be
permanently locked in solid forms (snow and ice). Other arid
regions include areas located in the rain shadows
of major mountain ranges or along coastal regions affected by
significant upwelling (such as the Atacama
Desert).
Change over time
The distribution of aridity observed at any one point in time is largely the result of the general circulation of the atmosphere. The latter does change significantly over time through climate change. In addition, changes in land use can result in greater demands on soil water and induce a higher degree of aridity. See aridification.See also
References
- Griffiths, J. F. (1985) 'Climatology', Chapter 2 in Handbook of Applied Meteorology, Edited by David D. Houghton, John Wiley and Sons, ISBN 0-471-08404-2.
- Durrenberger, R. W. (1987) 'Arid Climates', article in The Encyclopedia of Climatology, p. 92-101, Edited by J. E. Oliver and R. W. Fairbridge, Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, ISBN 0-87933-009-0.
- Stadler, S. J (1987) 'Aridity Indexes', article in The Encyclopedia of Climatology, p. 102-107, Edited by J. E. Oliver and R. W. Fairbridge, Van Nostrand Reinhld Company, New York, ISBN 0-87933-009-0.
arid in Bosnian: Aridna
klima
arid in Czech: Aridní
oblast
arid in German: Arides
Klima
arid in Spanish: Clima
árido
arid in Basque: Basamortuko
klima
arid in French: Climat
désertique
arid in Galician: Clima
árido
arid in Korean: 사막
기후
arid in Croatian: Aridna
klima
arid in Indonesian:
Arid
arid in Hebrew: אקלים
צחיח
arid in Georgian: არიდული
ჰავა
arid in Dutch: Droog
klimaat
arid in Japanese:
砂漠気候
arid in Norwegian Nynorsk:
Tørt klima
arid in Portuguese: Clima
árido
arid in Russian: Аридный
климат
arid in Simple English:
Arid
arid in Serbo-Croatian:
Aridna klima
arid in Ukrainian: Аридний
клімат
arid in Turkish:
Kurak
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Saharan, academic, acarpous, anhydrous, athirst, barren, blah, blank, bloodless, bone-dry, bookish, boring, bromidic, celibate, characterless, childless, cold, colorless, dead, desert, desolate, dismal, drab, draggy, drained, drearisome, dreary, dried-up, droughty, dry, dry as dust, dryasdust, dull, dusty, earthbound, effete, elephantine, empty, etiolated, exhausted, fade, fallow, flat, fruitless, gaunt, gelded, heavy, high and dry, ho-hum,
hollow, humdrum, impotent, inane, ineffectual, inexcitable, infecund, infertile, insipid, issueless, jejune, juiceless, lackluster, leached, leaden, lifeless, like parchment,
literal, low-spirited,
menopausal, moistureless, monotonous, mundane, nonfertile, nonproducing, nonproductive, nonprolific, pale, pallid, pedantic, pedestrian, plodding, pointless, poky, ponderous, prosaic, prosing, prosy, sandy, sapless, sere, sine prole, slow, solemn, spiritless, staid, sterile, stiff, stodgy, stolid, stuffy, sucked dry, superficial, tasteless, tedious, teemless, thirsting, thirsty, unanimated, uncultivated, undamped, unfanciful, unfertile, unfruitful, unideal, unimaginative, uninspired, uninteresting, uninventive, unlively, unoriginal, unplowed, unpoetic, unproductive, unprolific, unromantic, unromanticized, unsown, untilled, unwatered, vapid, virgin, waste, wasted, waterless, weariful, wearisome, without issue,
wooden