Siberia is a vast territory often associated with unrelenting cold, which leads many to question if this immense region qualifies as a desert. The common perception links deserts solely to heat and sand, but the scientific classification is based on moisture, not temperature. While the majority of Siberia is not a desert, a direct answer requires acknowledging the enormous scale and varied climates across the region. The term desert does apply to specific, remote, and small portions located in its extreme far northern reaches based on a strict scientific measure of precipitation. This distinction highlights the difference between a cold climate and a truly arid environment.
Understanding the Definition of a Desert
The scientific definition of a desert is rooted in aridity, specifically the amount of moisture an area receives annually. A region is formally classified as an arid land, or desert, if it receives less than 250 millimeters (about 10 inches) of precipitation per year. This low precipitation can fall as either rain or snow, meaning that temperature is not the primary factor in the designation. High potential evaporation rates, where the amount of water that could evaporate exceeds the actual amount of rainfall, is another important characteristic of deserts.
This precipitation-based criterion allows for the existence of both hot deserts, like the Sahara, and cold deserts, such as the high plateaus of Antarctica. Cold deserts are environments where the lack of moisture is exacerbated by low temperatures, which often lock up the limited precipitation as ice or snow. Understanding this focus on aridity is necessary to correctly evaluate Siberia’s climate zones.
Siberia’s Dominant Climates: Taiga and Tundra
The immense landmass of Siberia is predominantly covered by two distinct biomes that generally receive enough moisture to prevent classification as a desert. The southern and central portions are dominated by the Taiga, or boreal forest. While the Taiga experiences brutally cold winters, its annual precipitation typically ranges from 288 mm to over 600 mm, which is well above the 250 mm desert threshold.
This moisture is sufficient to sustain dense coniferous forests, mainly composed of hardy trees like the deciduous Siberian larch. The Taiga’s climate is subarctic and continental, characterized by short, warm summers and long, extremely cold winters. The consistently higher precipitation levels rule out a desert classification for this vast forested area.
Moving northward, the Taiga transitions into the Tundra biome, which fringes the Arctic Ocean coastlines of Siberia. The Tundra is a treeless plain underlain by permafrost, a layer of permanently frozen ground. This region receives very low annual precipitation, often falling within the 150 to 250 mm range, similar to the precipitation levels of some true deserts.
Despite this apparent aridity, the Tundra is typically a saturated environment that does not fully meet the desert classification. The permafrost layer prevents water from draining away and also slows the rate of evaporation significantly. This results in boggy, saturated ground during the summer thaw, allowing low-growing vegetation, such as mosses, lichens, sedges, and shrubs, to thrive during the short growing season.
The Concept of Polar Deserts
The scientific nuance in the classification of Siberia emerges in its extreme northernmost regions, where the term polar desert accurately applies. Polar deserts represent the most arid and cold environments on Earth, and they are distinct from the standard Tundra biome. These deserts are found on the high Arctic islands and certain coastal zones, such as the remote Novosibirsk Archipelago off the northern coast of eastern Siberia.
These areas meet the desert criteria because their annual precipitation is significantly below the 250 mm threshold, with some areas receiving less than 200 mm per year. The intense cold ensures that what little precipitation falls is often locked up as permanent ice and snow, making it unavailable as moisture for plant life. The environment is characterized by bare ground, shattered bedrock, and gravel, with a scarcity of plant species.
The key distinction between a polar desert and the Tundra is the extent of vegetation cover. While Tundra supports widespread, albeit low-growing, plant life, the extreme cold and lack of available moisture in a true polar desert prevent continuous vegetation cover. In the Siberian polar desert zones, closed plant cover is virtually absent.