There’s a fair amount of discussion about why Europe is (for its latitude) so much warmer than America, but I can’t seem to find any explanations about why Europe is so dry compared to America.
To explain what I’m talking about, I’ve been looking into the climate data on Wikipedia of European and American cities recently and have noticed a very sharp difference their average precipitation levels. Specifically, European cities consistently seem to receive around 20-30 inches (about 500-760 mm) of rain a year whereas American cities east of the 98th degree longitude (about in the middle of Texas) receive somewhere between 40-60 inches (around 1000-1500 mm). The only European exceptions seem to be western parts of Ireland, the UK, and mountainous areas like northern Spain.
Even American cities in the plains west of the 98 receive rain comparable to places like Volgograd (between 15-20 inches) and places like Phoenix receive rain about equal to Atyrau (a Kazakhstani city on the north coast of the Caspian).
What makes this especially odd to me is that Europe, as a geographic entity, seems like it should receive more rain than America, given that most land in Europe is substantially closer to water compared to most places in America.
In: Planetary Science
I’ll start with Tundras which are the most exaggerated example. Tundras receive an average of 6-10 inches a year of precipitation which is less than most deserts, but they’re usually very wet and boggy.
The simple answer is that evaporation is very slow when it’s cold. I live in a temperate climate and it’s been three or four days since we got about 0.1 inches of rain, yet my driveway is still muddy. Midsummer we might get half an inch of rain in a thunderstorm and the ground will be dry in an hour or two.
Europe is cooler than the Americas due to its higher latitude, the interior of the Russian and Kazak steppes are even moreso.
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