Gobi Desert Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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The vast and formidable Gobi Desert covers an area of nearly 500,000 square miles across southern Mongolia and northern China. The Gobi, one of the world’s largest deserts, also holds the distinction of being the northernmost desert on Earth. Located centrally within the Eurasian Continent, this region experiences wide seasonal temperature extremes, with daily average July temperatures reaching 113 degrees F, and average daily January temperatures dropping to negative 40 degrees F. The Gobi’s continental location is also largely responsible for its aridity. Great distances from the oceans translate into little moisture and precipitation reaching this desert. In addition, the Gobi desert is bounded by mountain ranges, including: the Tien Shan and Altay to the west, the Hangayn to the north, the Greater Khingan Range to the east, and the Yin and Pei Mountains to the south. Nearly encircled by mountains, the Gobi Desert’s aridity is exacerbated by the loss of potential moisture as orographic precipitation empties on the windward edge of the mountains, leaving the region largely in an expansive rain shadow. Total annual precipitation varies across the desert, with yearly totals amounting to less than three inches in the west, to slightly more than eight inches in the east and northeast. The precipitation in the eastern-and northeastern-most areas of the Gobi occurs primarily in the summer during isolated, monsoon-like downpours.

Despite being sparsely populated by nomadic herders in Mongolia and more sedentary farmers in China, the Gobi Desert has a number of notable interrelationships with human society. The first European explorer of the region is thought to have been Marco Polo during his journey across Asia in the 13th century. Russian and British geographers and explorers mapped much of the region during the late 19th century. Perhaps the most famous expedition to the Gobi desert occurred in 1922 by a group of scientists led by Roy Chapman Andrews and sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History. The group located thousands of fossilized dinosaur remains, including nesting sites, dinosaur eggs, and skeletal Proceratops remains showing nearly all stages of the dinosaur’s life cycle from newly hatched baby dinosaurs to old-aged adults. Later explorations in the 1990s reaffirmed the Gobi’s place as one of the world’s premier dinosaur fossil grounds.

Today, the Gobi Desert’s unique ecosystem is threatened by the possible extinction of native fauna and a troubling rate of desertification and expansion of lifeless desert. Conservation efforts aimed at protecting the endangered wild Bactrian camel and the Gobi brown bear led to the establishment of Mongolia’s Great Gobi Strictly Protected Area in 1975. Numbers of remaining Bactrian camels may be as low as 300, and Gobi bears may number less than 50. Other rare and endangered species include the Asiatic wild ass and Przewalski’s horse. The negative human impact on the Gobi desert region can be seen with the growing problem of desertification, the overall expansion of desert conditions into former grasslands. Increasing human populations and unsustainable overgrazing by livestock have removed a steadily increasing amount of grasses and other vegetation, upsetting the delicate ecosystem balance, and resulting in the continuing expansion of the desert. Gobi desertification has triggered giant dust storms that have carried sand and dirt to China’s heavily populated centers in the east, and as far away as South Korea and Japan.

Bibliography:

Roy Chapman Andrews, “Explorations in Mongolia: A Review of the Central Asiatic Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History,” The Geographical Journal (v.69, 1927);
John Man, Gobi: Tracking the Desert (Yale University Press, 1999);
George Schaller, “Tracking the Gobi’s Last Wild Bears and Camels,” International Wildlife (v.25, 1995);
Donovan Webster, “China’s Unknown Gobi: Alashan,” National Geographic (v.201, 2002).