A fog desert is a type of

desert A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the la ...

where

fog drip Fog drip is water dripping to the ground during fog. It occurs when water droplets from the fog adhere to the needles or leaves of trees or other objects, coalesce into larger drops and then drop to the ground. Fog drip can be an important sourc ...

supplies the majority of moisture needed by animal and plant life. Examples of fog deserts include the

Atacama Desert The Atacama Desert () is a desert plateau located on the Pacific Ocean, Pacific coast of South America, in the north of Chile. Stretching over a strip of land west of the Andes Mountains, it covers an area of , which increases to if the barre ...

of coastal

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

and

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

; the

Baja California desert The Baja California desert () is a desert ecoregion of Mexico's Baja California peninsula. This ecoregion occupies the western portion of the Baja California peninsula, and occupies most of the Mexican states of Baja California Sur and Baja Cali ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

; the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

; the

Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert The Arabian Peninsula coastal fog desert, also known as the Southwestern Arabian coastal xeric scrub, is a desert ecoregion on the southern coasts of the Arabian Peninsula, which experiences thick fogs where visibility may be reduced to . It is ...

; and a manmade instance within

Biosphere 2 University of Arizona Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona. Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and i ...

, an artificial closed ecosphere in

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

Formation

Humidity Humidity is the concentration of water vapor present in the air. Water vapor, the gaseous state of water, is generally invisible to the human eye. Humidity indicates the likelihood for precipitation (meteorology), precipitation, dew, or fog t ...

in foggy air is above 95%. One way for

fog Fog is a visible aerosol consisting of tiny water droplets or ice crystals suspended in the air at or near the Earth's surface. Reprint from Fog can be considered a type of low-lying cloud usually resembling stratus and is heavily influenc ...

to form in

deserts A desert is a landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions create unique biomes and ecosystems. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About one-third of the l ...

is through the interaction of hot humid air (such as is formed above warm bodies of water) with a cooler object, such as a mountain. When warm air hits cooler objects, fog is generated by the

condensation Condensation is the change of the state of matter from the gas phase into the liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. The word most often refers to the water cycle. It can also be defined as the change in the state of water vapor ...

of vaporized water. Another way fog forms in deserts occurs when a desert is close to an ocean which has a cold current. When air is heated over desert land and blows towards the cool water in the ocean, it condenses and fog is formed. The cool fog is then blown inland by the ocean breeze. Fog is mainly formed in the early morning or after sunset. Drastic changes in elevation such as mountain ranges allow for maritime winds to settle in specific geographic areas, which is a common characteristic in fog deserts. The

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

mountain range which runs along the Pacific coast of South America divides

and

into inland and coastal regions, and its proximity to the sea coupled with the steep change in elevation (and thus surface temperature) allow for fog to form along the Pacific coast and supply moisture to the otherwise

arid Aridity is the condition of geographical regions which make up approximately 43% of total global available land area, characterized by low annual precipitation, increased temperatures, and limited water availability.Perez-Aguilar, L. Y., Plata ...

desert. The Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world, features

lomas ''Lomas'' (Spanish for "hills"), also called fog oases and mist oases, are areas of fog-watered vegetation in the coastal desert of Peru and northern Chile. About 100 lomas near the Pacific Ocean are identified between 5°S and 30°S latitude, a ...

, areas in which fog condenses against mountain slopes near the sea and creates "fog oases" with an abundant

biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...

of plant and animal species. Plant coverage varies greatly, from coverage as high as 50% in the foggiest areas to a near-total absence of plant life above the fog line. Within arid fog deserts with low

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls from clouds due to gravitational pull. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, rain and snow mixed ("sleet" in Commonwe ...

levels, fog drip provides the moisture needed for agricultural development. The variation in humidity throughout the day and seasons within a fog desert region encourage the development of a comparable diversity of plant types and habits such as

succulents In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meanin ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and botany, the term deciduous () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed Leaf, leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

species, and woody

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

Ecology

The species prevalent in fog deserts depend almost entirely on water contained in the fog for their survival. This has led to the development of various structural and behavioral adaptations by organisms to collect water. The

Stenocara ''Stenocara'' is a genus of darkling beetles which is native to southern Africa. Several species are endemic to Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the ...

beetle, which lives in the

Namib The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

desert, climbs sand dunes when the humid wind is blowing from the ocean to access the ambient water. An example of plants adapting to the fog desert's climate is the genus ''

Welwitschia ''Welwitschia'' is a monotypic genus of gnetophytes containing only the species ''Welwitschia mirabilis''. It is named after the Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch, who documented the plant in the 1850s. In common use, it is sometimes ref ...

'' which also grows in the Namib desert and grows only two leaves through its life. The leaves have large pores to help it absorb water from the fog forming on them. People living in the Namib depend on techniques to collect water from fog. A lot of technologies are being developed to help extract water from desert air. Fog harvesters are undergoing improvements based on observations of the adaptations of some of the beings in fog deserts like the Stenocara beetle. Devices being developed to extract water from air desert use metal-organic framework crystals to capture and hold water molecules when exposed to air flow at night. In the morning, air flow is cut and the water collected previous night is then vaporized by exposure to sunlight and then condensed into liquid water when it hits the cooler condenser.

References

{{Reflist Deserts

Habitats Ecosystems