Why do places like Death Valley get so hot but places on the same longitude don’t get as hot?
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It has no clouds, because it’s in a rain shadow – mountains squeeze the moisture out of any air before it can reach the valley. No clouds means no rain, no vegetation, no water – which means nothing can absorb the heat, and it all goes into the ground and air.
Also death valley is the lowest elevation place and generally it’s hotter the lower the elevation is. But yeah it’s a combo of the elevation, the dryness, the regional air patterns.
I think you mean latitude. Latitude lines are parallel to the equator. Longitude lines travel north to south to the poles.
Water regulates temperatures good. Places with more rain are usually less extreme temperature. Plants hold water for longer than places without plants. Places with no plants or rain get really really hot in the day and really really cold at night. The darker the sand is the more it absorbs light and gets warm. Places like death valley have dark reddish sand and minimal water and plants.
For the same reason mountains have snow on them all year round.
The higher you go the colder it gets, the lower you go the hotter it gets, and Death Valley is one of the lowest points in the world. A bit less than 300 feet below sea level.
And the reason the temperature changes is just because the air is more dense at lower altitudes.
And a side note for some of the other commentators: water vapor is the most effective greenhouse gas in our atmosphere. Clouds would make it even *hotter.*
No one has mentioned that as a deep valley with steep mountains on all sides, Death Valley is also frequently exposed to adiabatic winds, where air heats up as it descends.
Would the overall average color and composition of the ground make a difference.
Like the difference of large dark rocks vs light grey soil or wispy yellow grassland.
Large dark rocks would get hotter, capture more heat, and release over a longer time period than the other kinds of landscapes
Is there a correlation between longitude and temperature/climate? I’m not aware of one. There’s a rough correlation to latitude, but not really longitude.
Back to OP’s question, not only is it in a rain shadow, it also below sea level. That, coupled with the fact that 14,000 peaks are causing that rain shadow, creates a gigantic elevation change that allows air to condense ( and heat) as it sinks from crest to valley bottom. This phenom is called ‘orographic heating’ and is the primary driver of Death Valley’s high temperatures.
Death Valley is a continental rift valley. Hot mantle material is closer to the surface there as the crust is thinner. Hot ground means hot air
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