17/11/2014

Geology IN: Why does Earth have deserts?

Why does Earth have deserts?

Take a look at a physical map of the world. Thirty degrees on either side of the equator, you
will see, distributed with suspicious regularity, a brown band of drylands circling the planet, a
sere belt warding off greener climes: the deserts of the world. They are positioned in the socalled Horse Latitudes, where constant high-pressure systems drive away the rain clouds, and
swirl above the earth because of global temperature variations and the Coriolis Effect produced
by the earths rotation in space. These areas within the Horse Latitudes are under the
influence of two bands of high atmospheric pressure called the subtropical high pressure belt
or subtropical ridge which is formed by the sinking air of the Hadley cell.
The heating of the tropics produces a huge amount of rising warm, moist air that creates the
Intertropical Convergence Zone, a band of thick cloud. This warm, moist air moves towards
the poles at high altitudes and then cools and sinks in the mid-latitudes in both hemispheres,
creating the Hadley Cell. The Hadley Cell is possibly the most fundamental factor in the global
climate system, redistributing the heat and moisture from the tropics to the higher latitudes.
Many of the world's deserts are caused by these climatological phenomena.

http://www.geologyin.com/2014/09/why-does-earth-have-deserts.html

1/3

17/11/2014

Geology IN: Why does Earth have deserts?

Most deserts are hot. Within the latitudes of the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, the sun is
directly overhead at noon on at least one day of the year. To the north or south of them, the
sun never appears directly overhead, and is not as concentrated as the beam that reaches the
tropical areas.
Deserts are not scattered randomly over the earth; the pattern of their occurrence is a result
of the factors that produced them. The biggest world deserts appear in these two
discontinuous belts ringing the globe. Because more land surface is in the Northern
Hemisphere in the latitudes described, more deserts can be found in the Northern than the
Southern Hemisphere.

Not all of our planets deserts are hot. Some of these drylands, like the Atacama of Chile,
the Namib and Kalahari of southern Africa, and the western Australian desert, are shaped by
cold oceanic currents that divert rain-laden air away from coastlines. Others, like the Great
Basin of western United States, and the deserts of central and eastern Australia are the result
of the rainshadow effect, through which coastal mountains take away the rain from the air
before it passes inland.
There are deserts like the Gobi and Takla Makan deserts of Mongolia and China, which are
simply so far away from the ocean that the winds lose any moisture they may hold long before
reaching the far off continental interior, even what little water remains in the Indian-born
clouds after they have scraped over the high Himalayas.
http://www.geologyin.com/2014/09/why-does-earth-have-deserts.html

2/3

17/11/2014

Geology IN: Why does Earth have deserts?

Posted by Chiffre

Bored by tectonic shape?

Free your mind riding the ice paths and power

http://www.geologyin.com/2014/09/why-does-earth-have-deserts.html

3/3