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Desert lands cover incredible distances. Many who have driven through deserts
in the United States may think they are enormous, but they are only the fifth
largest in the world covering about 500,000 square miles. By contrast the great
Sahara Desert covers almost 3.5 million square miles, the Australian deserts 1.3
million square miles, the Arabian deserts 1 million square miles, while the
deserts of Turkestan have 750,000 square miles. Numerous smaller deserts are
also scattered across the globe. All are unique, and have adapted to their own
particular environments.
Global Weather PatternsDeserts tend to occur in two
belts that circle the globe. Both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere have this
belt located between 15 and 35 degrees latitude, roughly centered over the
Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. This is no accident. The sun is
more directly overhead the equatorial region so it receives the most intense
sunlight, and this solar energy heats the air. Hot air has two important
qualities: it can hold enormous quantities of moisture, and it rises up into the
atmosphere. So hot tropical air tends to be moist and rise into the atmosphere.
As this air rises it cools, condensing the moisture and converting it to water
where it falls as rain. This is why rain forests tend to occur near the equator.
What goes up must come down, and gravity pulls this mass of rising air back to
the ground. Tropical air typically falls at about 30 degrees latitude on either
side of the equator and along the desert belt, but robbed of its moisture it is
now hot and dry. The result are often persistent high pressure systems that tend
to block incoming storms, or push them into other regions. These patterns make
deserts possible, but typically other factor must also intrude to make deserts a
reality.