Goh Cheng Leong Chapter 18 – Hot Desert & Mid-Latitude Desert Climate YouTube Lecture Handouts

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Goh Cheng Leong Chapter 18: Hot Desert & Midlatitude Desert Climate

Illustration: Goh Cheng Leong Chapter 18 – Hot Desert & Mid-Latitude Desert Climate YouTube Lecture Handouts
  • Scanty Rainfall
  • Hot Climate
  • Cause of aridity? ?
  • Offshore trade winds (trade wind desert)
  • Temperate desert – rainless due to interior location
  • Sahara Desert – 3200 miles long & 1000 mile wide – 3.5 million square miles – more than 50 states of USA
  • Next Biggest – Great Australian Desert
  • Atacama/Peruvian Desert – Driest of all desert
  • Patagonian Desert – rain shadow position on leeward side of Andes
  • Rainfall < 10 inches – ARIDITY
  • Hot Desert – across Horse latitude or Subtropical High Pressure Belt – air is descending - off shore trade winds – wind from cold to warm area (low Relative Humidity - 30%)
  • Depressions in Asiatic continental mass – light rainfall

Vegetation

  • Scrub & herbs
  • Dormant vegetation
  • Xerophytic or drought – resistant scrub cactus, thorns, trees are rare & date palms
  • Salinity of soil – salt accumulates – hard pans
  • Deficient in humus
  • Leaves are waxy and leathery, needle shaped – reduce transpiration
  • Cactus – thick succulent stems
  • Seeds have thick and tough skin

Life in Deserts

Bedouin of Arab

  • Best nomadic herdsman
  • Trade
  • Caravan merchants
  • Oases people
  • Wander for water & pastures
  • Animals – sheep, goat, camel, horse – dairy milk and cheese, skin, hair, wool

Bushmen of Kalahari (Nomadic Hunters & Food Gatherers)

  • bow & poisoned arrows
  • skill to obtain water in desert – store in ostrich shell
  • suck water from ground by hollow reed
  • travel in family groups (sherms)

Bindibu of Australia (Nomadic Hunters & Food Gatherers)

  • Lean and dark, healthy
  • Wooden stick – boomerangs
  • Domesticate – dingo (wild dog)
  • Women gather grass and roots
  • Lives in groups
  • Close to water supply
  • Houses called wurlies (simple shelters)

Nomadic Herdsman

  • Ride animals
  • Bedoiuns – ride horse, live in tents
  • Tuaregs (Shara) – camel rider, dwell in grass zeriba
  • Gobi Mongols – ride horse to herd yaks & live in yurts (tents)

Camel

  • Ship of desert
  • Hooves to walk in sand
  • Broad padded feet
  • Store water in stomach
  • Store fat in hump

Settled Cultivators

  • Irrigation
  • Network of canals
  • Egypt – Nile delta – basin irrigation
  • Summer – rice & cotton
  • Winter – Wheat, barley, beans
  • Dam – Aswan & Sennar
  • Indus in Pakistan, Tigris – Euphrates in Iraq, Colorado river in Imperial valley of California
  • Oasis formation – Tafilalet in Morocco (5000 square miles) & Ghadames oasis of Libya – wall constructed to keep away simoom (dust storms)
  • Mud brick houses with flat roof
  • Narrow streets, suq (central market place)

Mining Settlers

  • Gold – Great Australian Desert
  • Diamond & copper – Kalahari Desert
  • Caliche (sodium nitrate) – Atacama
  • Copper – Chuquicamata, Antofagasta, Iquique, Nevada
  • Silver – Mexico
  • Uranium – Utah
  • Oil- Sahara & Arab desert – liquid gold

Manishika