When we think of the desert, perhaps the first image that pops into our minds is endless sand dunes, but a dry sandstorm and a sky filled with only intense sunlight. Over the years, under the influence of nature and mainly humans, the rate of desertification is increasing. There are many deserts and deserts that were originally forests or inhabited by humans, but now they have become a place where only the most thorny animals and plants can survive. In this article, Toplist introduces the largest deserts and deserts in the world today.
Antarctic Desert
The Antarctic Desert, also known as Antarctica, is the largest and largest desert in the world. However, when it comes to deserts, we often think of arid sand deserts, sandstorms. But the Antarctic desert is a desert especially when it is an ice desert. A place that never received the sun for a whole year. And one of the factors to call Antarctica a desert is that because the amount of rain in Antarctica is so low, only 50mm in a year, and this rainfall only exists in the form of snow, not as water. This is very limited to the country. In addition to having little rain, a desert is also defined as a place with a harsh climate and super-low humidity because water evaporates faster than it receives, so it doesn't have to be hot to be a desert.
In terms of size, Antarctica is the largest desert in the world today, with a "huge" area of approximately 14 million square kilometers. It is covered with permafrost that makes up 90% of the water on Earth, and most of it is 1.6km thick on average. Antarctica is home to a number of animals such as penguins, seals or some other birds. And of course, in the coldest, windiest, most isolated continent in the world, there are no inhabitants. However, stretching across Antarctica, there are still between 1,000 and 5,000 scientists temporarily "stationed" at research stations.
Sahara Desert
In the Sahara, the rainfall is very low compared to other parts of the world, the average annual rainfall in the Sahara is only 25mm and in the East of the Sahara it is only 5mm. In particular, the rain here is not in the form of particles that fall directly to the ground, but it exists in the form of fog due to the sudden temperature change between the temperature of the day and the temperature of the night.
The word Sahara in Arabic means Great Desert, there are many outstanding features that give this special name. The Sahara desert is like huge sand dunes, with rivers and streams, rocky plateaus, arid valleys, many verdant oases and diverse flora and fauna and reptiles. The Sahara Desert covers an area of more than 9 million square kilometers, roughly the size of the United States and China. The desert covers most of North Africa, covering large areas of 12 countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Mali, Eritrea, Niger, Sudan, Tunisa, Western Sahara. Scientists discovered that the Sahara desert is expanding. Since 1962, this desert has expanded by nearly 650,000 square kilometers.
Arabian Desert
The area of the Arabian desert is 2.3 million square kilometers (about 900,000 square miles). The Arabian Desert covers Saudi Arabia, Oman and parts of Iraq. Depending on the location, the dry heat in this desert varies. In the central desert, temperatures can reach 54 degrees Celsius. Areas near the edge of the desert or on the highlands are more humid, sometimes with fog and fog.
The average annual rainfall here is less than 100 mm, but depending on the location it can range from 0 to 500 mm. Thanks to human irrigation, many parts of the desert have been covered with green. This is indeed a good sign in the fact that the earth is becoming more and more deserted. However, there are issues that need to be considered. Circular tree planting has become popular in Saudi Arabia over the past three decades. Engineers dug deep into the 20,000-year-old underground aquifer to collect irrigation water. It is estimated that if the current rate of water use continues, the water source will be exhausted within the next 50 years.
Gobi . Desert
The Gobi Desert is located in the territory of two countries, China and Mongolia, with an area of 1.3 million square kilometers. Gobi is famous as one of the five largest deserts in the world and the largest desert in Asia with a lot of attractive landscapes and interesting experiences. In the summer, the temperature in Gobi is very harsh above 40 degrees Celsius. Although the weather is hot and cold, it still attracts a lot of tourists who love to explore and experience. Because Gobi owns many sand dunes, gravel plains and majestic rocky mountains creating beautiful natural scenery.
The Gobi Desert is a desert with an average rainfall ranging from 50mm - 200mm and especially in the Gobi Desert, it has also formed the rainy and dry seasons. Gobi desert is a cold desert because in winter the temperature here drops to -40 degrees Celsius, snow covers a desert area. In particular, tourists with a high spirit of experience can choose the Gobi desert to explore the beauty here. And this is also the desert that has unearthed the fossil sets of the extinct Dinosaur several thousand years ago.
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a desert covered with sand, and is also a desert that has been active since long ago. The Kalahari Desert has less than 500mm of rainfall and in some places only 200mm. Archaeologists have studied that 1 million years ago there was a fire in this area. The Kalahari Desert covers an area of 930,000 square kilometers. The Kalahari is largely covered with russet sand and has no permanent surface water. Water drainage is by dry valleys, seasonally inundated basins, as well as the extensive sand basins of the Makgadikgadi Basin in Botswana and the Etosha Basin in Namibia.
However, the Kalahari is not a real desert. Some areas of the Kalahari receive over 250 mm of erratic rainfall annually and they are suitable for plant growth, it is only really arid in the southwest (less than 175 mm of annual rainfall) making The Kalahari is a fossil desert. Summer temperatures in the Kalahari Desert range from 20 to 40°C. In winter, the Kalahari has a cold and dry climate with frost at night. Average late winter temperatures can reach below 0°C.
The Patagonian Desert
The Patagonian Desert is located in Argentina, Patagonia is mainly a treeless sandy plain stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes and especially the Andes side with little rain. With a huge area of 630,000 square kilometers (260,000 sq mi), this desert belongs to Argentina. Desert and semi-desert areas extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Andes, mostly treeless plains (according to Encyclopedia Britannica).
Like Death Valley in California, the Patagonian Desert sits on the less-rainy slopes of the Andes. The extreme heat here is no less than the valley of death. The average annual rainfall here is only from 160 to 200mm. According to Susan Woodward, a professor of geography emeritus at Radford University Virginia, the harsh environment here is mainly due to the influence of topography. As air masses are forced to move around mountains and deep depressions, they become hotter and their capacity to hold water vapor increases. On the less rainy side of a mountain range, water evaporates very quickly, thus creating an arid desert environment.
Great Victoria Desert
The Great Victoria Desert is mainly located in Australia with an area of 647,000 square kilometers. The Great Victoria Desert consists of large red sand dunes and salt lakes. The average rainfall here is only 162mm, very low compared to some deserts with high rainfall reaching 500mm. The Great Victoria Desert is a desert with a high number of camels up to 750,000 and they are also a threat to the water here.
The Great Victoria Desert, a temporary ecoregion of Australia, is a sparsely populated desert area in Western Australia and South Australia. A desert across South Western Australia, Western Australia to South Australia. Altitude 150 - 300 m. To the north it is bordered by the Gibson Desert and to the south by the Narrabar Plain. Vegetation is scarce, the driest area in the country.
Syrian Desert
The area of the Syrian desert is about 518,000 square kilometers (about 200,000 square miles). This place is truly a dead land when described as desolate and barren. The Syrian desert covers much of Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, where it is "marked" by lava - an insurmountable barrier to humans until recent decades. Now, we have highways and oil pipelines have been built along this area. The average annual rainfall in this area is about 125mm.
Since ancient times, people have set foot in the Syrian desert. Several modern discoveries have confirmed that. The archaeological site known as "Syria's Stonehenge" was discovered in 2009. A 2012 report by Discovery said it contained numerous stone circles and tomb sites. The Es Safa volcano near Damascus is the largest volcano in Arabia. Lava vents were active about 12,000 years ago during the Holocene Epoch. More recently, a lake of boiling lava was found around the area in 1850.
Great Basin Desert
The area of this Great Basin desert amounts to 490,000 square kilometers (about 190,000 square miles). Unlike most other deserts, the distinguishing feature here is that most of the rain that falls here is in the form of snow. The desert's coverage includes most of Nevada, parts of Utah, and a few other states. Annual average rainfall in the area is only about 150 to 300 mm. This desert is formed on the less rainy side of the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California. The surrounding areas are also heavily influenced by the desert. There are strong winds known as Santa Ana that often blow south of California after forming in high pressure areas in the Great Basin Desert.
In the Great Basin desert area, there are many strange rock formations. For example, some species were found in central Nevada in 2009, their appearance was described as "drip like honey". This deformation occurs due to changes in the Earth's crust that are caused by the high pressure and high temperature below the Earth's surface. Heavy materials in the lithosphere, when heated, will spill over to the thinner mantle, dragging the material behind.
Chihuahua Desert
The area of the Chihuahua Desert is estimated to be about 282,000 square kilometers (175,000 sq mi). The Chihuahua Desert is located along the Mexican-American border. Its area is even larger than the state of California (according to statistics of the University of New Mexico). The desert is so named because it covers most of the Mexican state of Chihuahua, in addition to the US states of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The average annual rainfall in this desert is less than 228 mm.
Like many other deserts in the world, the Chihuahua Desert is bounded by the Sierre Madre Occidental Mountains to the west and the Sierra Madre Oriental Mountains to the east, blocking water vapor from the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico inland. Underneath the desert and Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico there are more than 300 caves. In this area, Carlsbad Caverns National Park was built after sulfuric acid infiltrated the limestone mountains.
Deserts around the world, big or small, are subject to extremes of weather. Too little rainfall leads to water shortages in these desert areas. Now that the air is getting hotter and hotter, desertification is spreading more and more, let's join hands to protect the environment and search for life in the desert.
