aridity

The Atacama Desert, which runs along the Pacific Coast in Chile, is the driest place on the planet and, largely because of that aridity, hostile to most living things.

A recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change found that severe increases in aridity caused by climate change is drying out frog habitats across the globe.

The climate pattern could plunge California back into aridity in the months ahead.

The extra heat and aridity may then make conditions favorable for more fire.

One problem, researchers say, is that the monitor was launched just as one of the driest periods in the history of the Southwest began, and it has never been adjusted for the region’s growing aridity.