The physical geography of China

Why is the Gobi growing?

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Geography · Asia

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What you need to know

• China is in the Northern Hemisphere, in Asia. It's so big, with such varied landscape, that its climate varies a lot from place to place.
• Climate is the average weather in a place (rain, sun, wind) over a long time, usually 30 years or more.
• Have a go'It's been sunny and 31 °C all week.' Is that weather or climate?

  Weather.

  Climate is an average over a long time, usually 30 years or more. One week is far too short to count.

• A monsoon is a seasonal change in wind direction that brings either a very rainy season or a very dry one.
• Much of China has a monsoon climate: dry winters, wetter summers.
• In summer, monsoon winds bring moisture from the Indian Ocean in the south-west and the Pacific Ocean in the south-east.
• Have a goA summer monsoon wind reaches China from the south-east. Which ocean did its moisture come from?

  The Pacific Ocean.

  South-west winds carry Indian Ocean moisture. South-east winds carry Pacific moisture.

• A biome is a large community of vegetation and wildlife adapted to a specific climate.
• China's biomes include desert, grassland, tropical forests (Xishuangbanna is one example) and temperate forests.
• A desert is extremely dry land, getting less than 25 centimetres of rain a year. Deserts can be hot or cold.
• Have a goA cold place gets 18 cm of rain a year. Could it be a desert?

  Yes.

  The test is rainfall, under 25 cm a year. Deserts can be hot or cold, so being cold doesn't rule it out.

• The Gobi covers parts of northern China and southern Mongolia, and is one of the largest deserts in the world.
• It's a cold desert because it's far north and on a high plateau, yet summer can top 40 °C and winter falls to around −40 °C.
• It's a rain shadow desert: the Himalayas block the south-west monsoon winds, so behind them is extremely dry and in front extremely wet.
• The Gobi is also a long way from the Pacific, so it gets very little Pacific monsoon moisture. Places further inland are usually drier.
• Have a goTwo towns get the same sea winds: one on the coast, one far inland. Which is usually drier?

  The one far inland.

  Places further inland are usually drier than places at or near the coast, because they are further from the moisture.

• Most of the Gobi is bare rock rather than sand.
• Extreme temperatures and very low rainfall mean few plants grow, few animals survive (camels, gazelles, snow leopards) and few people live there.
• Dust and sandstorms are regular, especially in spring. Wind can carry dust thousands of kilometres, polluting the air in cities such as Beijing.
• Desertification is when semi-arid land gets drier and turns into desert. Human activities are making the Gobi bigger this way.
• Agriculture, mining, deforestation and overgrazing use water and strip away plant cover. Bare, dry soil erodes easily and, without roots, loses fertility.
• Climate change helps too: droughts are more frequent and last longer, so semi-arid land bordering the Gobi turns into desert.
• China's Great Green Wall, begun in 1978, is a government project planting billions of trees along the desert's southern border to slow desertification. The trees also absorb carbon dioxide.
• Other strategies: use and store water more efficiently, manage livestock numbers to cut overgrazing, and grow more drought-resistant crops.

The big picture

China is a huge country in the Northern Hemisphere, in Asia, so its climate varies a lot, from heavy summer monsoon rain to arid land. The Gobi Desert is dry for two reasons: the Himalayas block the monsoon winds from the south-west (a rain shadow), and it is a long way from the Pacific Ocean. It is a cold desert, mostly bare rock, a hard place for plants, animals and people. Human activities and climate change are making it bigger, and strategies such as the Great Green Wall are trying to slow that.

⚠ Watch out

Thinking every desert is hot and sandy. A desert is defined by getting under 25 cm of rain a year, and the Gobi is a cold desert that is mostly bare rock.

Memory hook

Mountains block it, the ocean's too far, and people make it bigger: block, far, bigger.

Check yourself

Without looking back, follow a summer monsoon wind from the Indian Ocean towards the Gobi. What happens on each side of the Himalayas, and what does the Gobi's distance from the Pacific add?