Desert 9 T01

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The combination of minimal light pollution and clear atmospheres makes desert locations ideal for stargazers. 5. The Desert Moon Serves as a Navigational Guide for Travellers Many deserts have no drainage to a river, lake, or ocean. Rainwater, including water from flash floods, collects in large depressions called basins. The shallow lakes that form in basins eventually evaporate, leaving playas, or salt-surfaced lake beds. Playas, also called sinks, pans, or salt flats, can be hundreds of kilometers wide. In the Chihuahuan Desert, in the United States and Mexico, temperatures can vary by dozens of degrees in one day. Daytime temperatures in the Chihuahua can climb beyond 37°C (100°F), while nighttime temperatures can dip below freezing (0°C or 32°F). Yan, Qing; Contoux, Camille; Camille Li; Schuster, Mathieu; Ramstein, Gilles; Zhang, Zhongshi (17 September 2014). "Aridification of the Sahara desert caused by Tethys Sea shrinkage during the Late Miocene". Nature. 513 (7518): 401–404. Bibcode: 2014Natur.513..401Z. doi: 10.1038/nature13705. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 25230661. S2CID 205240355.

The permanent absence of clouds allows unhindered light and thermal radiation. The stability of the atmosphere above the desert prevents any convective overturning, thus making rainfall virtually non-existent. As a consequence, the weather tends to be sunny, dry and stable with a minimal chance of rainfall. Subsiding, diverging, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems are extremely unfavorable for the development of convectional showers. The subtropical ridge is the predominant factor that explains the hot desert climate ( Köppen climate classification BWh) of this vast region. The descending airflow is the strongest and the most effective over the eastern part of the Great Desert, in the Libyan Desert: this is the sunniest, driest and the most nearly "rainless" place on the planet, rivaling the Atacama Desert, lying in Chile and Peru. a b c d Clark, Arthur (June 1989). Amdt, Robert (ed.). "Lakes of the Rub' al-Khali". Saudi Aramco World. 40 (3): 28–33. ISSN 0003-7567 . Retrieved 22 August 2010. The Sahara is not the only desert to have dramatic climate change. The Ghaggar River, in what is now India and Pakistan, was a major water source for Mohenjo-daro, an urban area of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. Over time, the Ghaggar changed course and now only flows during the rainy monsoon season. Mohenjo-daro is now a part of the vast Thar and Cholistan deserts. Libya's Qaddafi taps 'fossil water' to irrigate desert farms". CSMonitor.com. 23 August 2010. Archived from the original on 19 January 2022 . Retrieved 19 July 2021.

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Drilling into aquifers provides water for drinking, agriculture, industry, and hygiene. However, it comes at a cost to the environment. Aquifers take a long time to refill. If desert communities use groundwater faster than it is replenished, water shortages can occur. The Mojave Desert, in southern California and Nevada, for instance, is sinking due to aquifer depletion. The booming desert communities of Las Vegas, Nevada, and California’s “ Inland Empire” are using water faster than the aquifer is being refilled. The water level in the aquifer has sunk as much as 30 meters (100 feet) since the 1950s, while the land above the aquifer has sunk as much as 10 centimeters (4 inches). The desert at night causes even the tiniest nature sounds to stand out, like the wind, plants moving, and animals in the distance. It makes you pay more attention and feel closer to the natural world. Kaʻū Desert – an area of desertification in Hawaii, due to the acid rainfall caused by the nearby Kīlauea volcano. a b c White, Kevin; Mattingly, David J. (2006). "Ancient Lakes of the Sahara". American Scientist. 94 (1): 58–65. doi: 10.1511/2006.57.983.

Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, the Sudan, Tunisia, and Western Sahara a b c d MacDonald, Kevin C.; Vernet, Robert; Martinon-Torres, Marcos; Fuller, Dorian Q. "Dhar Néma: From early agriculture to metallurgy in southeastern Mauritania". ResearchGate. Azania Archaeological Research in Africa. Archived from the original on 27 September 2022 . Retrieved 24 May 2021. Rivers sometimes provide water in a desert. The Colorado River, for instance, flows through three deserts in the American Southwest: the Great Basin, the Sonoran, and the Mojave. Seven states—Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and California—rely on the river for some of their water supply. While bobcats are stealthy with sharp senses, they stalk rabbits, birds, and small mammals with keen eyesight. Their spotted fur provides excellent camouflage in the desert. They prefer the cooler nighttime hours for hunting, avoiding the scorching daytime desert heat.The Saharan flora comprises around 2800 species of vascular plants. Approximately a quarter of these are endemic. About half of these species are common to the flora of the Arabian deserts. [51] Camels in the Guelta d'Archei, in north-eastern Chad Wade, Lizzie (2015). "Drones and Satellites Spot Lost Civilizations in Unlikely Places". Science. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa7864. In the 16th century the northern fringe of the Sahara, such as coastal regencies in present-day Algeria and Tunisia, as well as some parts of present-day Libya, together with the semi-autonomous kingdom of Egypt, were occupied by the Ottoman Empire. From 1517 Egypt was a valued part of the Ottoman Empire, ownership of which provided the Ottomans with control over the Nile Valley, the east Mediterranean and North Africa. The benefit of the Ottoman Empire was the freedom of movement for citizens and goods. Traders exploited the Ottoman land routes to handle the spices, gold and silk from the East, manufactured goods from Europe, and the slave and gold traffic from Africa. Arabic continued as the local language and Islamic culture was much reinforced. The Sahel and southern Sahara regions were home to several independent states or to roaming Tuareg clans.

The Sahara ( / s ə ˈ h ɑːr ə/, / s ə ˈ h ær ə/) is a desert spanning North Africa. With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000sqmi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic. [1] [2] [3] a b c Nicholson, Sharon E. (27 October 2011). Dryland Climatology. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-50024-1. Archived from the original on 30 July 2023 . Retrieved 20 November 2020. Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Jan Mayen, Norway, Russia, Svalbard, Sweden, and the United States English-Arabic online dictionary". Online.ectaco.co.uk. 28 December 2006. Archived from the original on 9 March 2009 . Retrieved 12 June 2010.al-Ba'labakkī, Rūḥī (2002). al-Mawrid: Qāmūs 'Arabī-Inklīzī (in Arabic) (16thed.). Beirut: Dār al-'Ilm lil-Malāyīn. p.689. Wengrow, David; Dee, Michael; Foster, Sarah; Stevenson, Alice; Ramsey, Christopher Bronk (March 2014). "Cultural convergence in the Neolithic of the Nile Valley: a prehistoric perspective on Egypt's place in Africa". Antiquity. 88 (339): 95–111. doi: 10.1017/S0003598X00050249. ISSN 0003-598X. S2CID 49229774.