The role of the atmosphere in contributing to ecosystem services and human well-being is discussed with examples at the local and regional scale, but also some implications at the global scale. The way the atmosphere interacts and supports our ecosystems is not always readily apparent, especially in dryland regions. Selected examples are presented using rain and dew in coastal arid to Mediterranean regions. The Negev desert of Israel was chosen to illustrate aspects of rain and dew, with Jerusalem as an example of urban dew collecting. A bibliographic search of journal articles with the term “ecosystem service(s)” in their titles or abstracts revealed that 60 percent of all such publications appeared between 2007-2009 and that, overall, 90 percent of the journal titles were in the sciences. Only a handful of publications focused on the atmosphere.