SERE (seer)
Dry,
shriveled, withered, having lost all moisture (especially
relating to vegetation).
Common
clues: Dried
up; Parched; Waterless; Like leaves in late Autumn; Desiccated;
Withered; Arid; Bone-dry; Desertlike; Saharan; Sun-cracked;
Scorched
Crossword
puzzle frequency:
6 times a year
News:
Drought
drove Mountain Lion into downtown El Paso
Video:
Parched
in the desert
In
1936, I first wrote science fiction. It was a long-winded attempt
at writing an endless novel...which died. I remember one
sentence, "Whole forests stood sere and brown in midsummer".
– Isaak Asimov
A
region is said to be arid when it is characterized by a severe
lack of available water, to the extent of hindering or even
preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life.
As a result, environments subject to arid climates tend to lack
vegetation and are called xeric or desertic.
The
Thar Desert near Jaisalmer, India.
The
expression 'available water' refers to water in the soil in
excess to the wilting point. The air over a hot desert may
actually contain substantial amounts of water vapor but that
water may not be generally accessible to plants, except for very
specialized organisms (such as some species of lichen). 'Lack of
water' refers to use by plants. The water that is actually
present in the environment may be sufficient for some species or
usages (such as climax vegetation), and grossly insufficient for
others. Aridity, the characteristic nature of an arid climate,
may thus depend on the use of the land. Regards to the presence
of life, what is more important than the degree of rainfall is
the fraction of precipitation that is not quickly lost through
evaporation or runoff. Attempts to quantitatively describe the
degree of aridity of a place has often led to the development of
aridity indexes. There is no universal agreement on the precise
boundaries between classes such as 'hyper-arid', 'arid',
'semi-arid', etc.
If
different classification schemes and maps differ in their
details, there is a general agreement about the fact that large
areas of the Earth are considered arid. These include the hot
deserts located broadly in sub-tropical regions, where the
accumulation of water is largely prevented by either low
precipitations, or high evaporation, or both, as well as cold
deserts near the poles, where water may be permanently locked in
solid forms (snow and ice). Other arid regions include areas
located in the rain shadows of major mountain ranges or along
coastal regions affected by significant upwelling (such as the
Atacama Desert).
This
article is licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia
article "Arid".
SERE
(327) 109 Tu+ >1 07 Withered
38
We- >1 07 Parched ARID
19
We >1 06 Dried up SERR
13
We >1 07 Arid
13
Th >1 01 Dry ARID WIPE
12
Tu+ >1 09 Bone-dry ARID
12
>1 99 Very dry ARID BRUT
10
We+ >1 06 Desiccated ARID
6
Th- >1 05 Dried-up
5
We+ >1 08 Desertlike ARID
5
Th+ >1 95 Wizened
4
We+ >1 00 Dried out
4
Tu- >1 00 Dry as dust ARID
4
We >1 00 Saharan ARID ARIS
3
Th- >1 04 All dried up
3
Tu- >1 03 Dehydrated ARID
3
We- >1 03 Dried
3
We CSy 07 Dried and withered
3
Tu+ >1 08 Drought-ridden
3
We >1 02 Dry and withered
06
Exceedingly dry
3
Th >1 04 Gobi-like ARID
3
Th- >1 03 Like the Gobi ARID
3
We+ >1 02 Like the Sahara ARID VAST
3
Fr- >1 06 Sun-cracked
3
We- >1 99 Waterless ARID
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