It’s time to start tuning for deserts!

Twenty-seven percent of the world’s terrestrial area is classified as arid or hyper-arid, regions that are second only to oceans in the sparsity of measurement sites. Contrary to popular perception, these desert areas are dynamic ecosystems that respond sensitively to changes in water availability, temperature, and carbon dioxide levels. Efforts to understand the dynamics and feedback mechanisms between the main players affecting desert weather and climate can be divided, by-and-large, into two groups: (1) addressing the most pressing knowledge gaps of desert weather and climate systems; and (2) exploring processes that have not previously been considered but are hypothesized to be more important than presumed, representing a realm of "unknown unknowns". One example to the “unknown unknowns” realm is related to non-rainfall water inputs (i.e., fog, dew, and atmospheric water vapor adsorption). Traveling between the Negev, Namib, and Sahara deserts, we will look into this largely overlooked phenomenon. We will point to the similarities between these deserts and ask how widespread this phenomenon may be and why should we care.