Introduction

The tropical desert is an environment of extremes: it is the driest and hottest place on earth. Rainfall is sporadic and in some years no measurable precipitation falls at all. The terribly dry conditions of the deserts are due to the year-round influence of subtropical high pressure and continentality. Deserts evoke an image of thirsty travelers crawling across lifeless sand dunes. This image accurately depicts some deserts, but not others. Many deserts are rocky and even mountainous, with colorful cliffs or peaks towering over plateaus and narrow canyons. Rains may punctuate the long hot summers, and in winter a thin layer of snow may cover the ground. Although plant life in deserts is not abundant, it is diverse. Cactus, sage, grasses, and other plants may dot the landscape. After a rainstorm, millions of flowers bloom. A desert is any region that receives less than 25 centimeters (10 inches) of rain per year and consequently supports little or no vegetation. Most deserts are surrounded by semiarid zones that receive 25 to 50 centimeters of rainfall, more moisture than a true desert but less than surrounding regions. Deserts cover 25 percent of the Earths land surface out- side of the polar regions and make up a significant proportion of every continent. If you were to visit the great deserts of the Earth, you might be surprised by their geologic and topo- graphic variety. You would see coastal deserts along the beaches of Chile, shifting dunes in the Sahara, deep red sand- stone canyons in southern Utah, and stark granite mountains in Arizona. The worlds deserts are similar to one another only in that they all receive scant rainfall.

Geographical Distribution
Deserts are typically found in continental interiors of the subtropics and on the leeside of mountains in the midlatitudes. Vast deserts cover much of north Africa (The Sahara), Saudi Arabia to Iran, Pakistan and western India. Tropical deserts are found in Baja California and interior Mexico in North America. Seven major tropical deserts are: (1) the Sahara is the biggest desert of the world. It stretches 3500 miles from the Atlantic ocean to the Red sea and 1200 miles from Sudan to Mediterranean sea and Atlas Mountains. Niger, Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Sudan, Morocco,

Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea etc. are all contained in this vast and sterile desert. (2) Desert of south-west Asia which contains in it almost all of the Arab peninsula excluding Yemen and Oman, Southern Israel, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and most of the parts of central and southern Syria. (3) The Desert, which contains in it the middle and lower parts of Indus Valley in Pakistan and western portion of Rajasthan in India. (4) Australian Desert which is the biggest in the southern hemisphere and covers about 40% area of Australia, (5) Kalahari of South Africa (6) Akatama Desert in South America covering coastal regions of Peru and some part of the Northern Chile, (7) Sonoran Desert which includes lower California North-west coast of the Mexican Mainland.

Deserts are located on western sides Western sides

From the high-pressure belts, about 30 N. and 30 S., the trade winds blow towards the low-pressure belt round the Equator. As they are flowing from cooler to warmer regions they become warmer as they proceed, and tend to absorb rather than deposit moisture. Thus they are dry winds. For this reason, a desert belt is found around the tropics on the western sides of the continents. THE EFFECT OF LATITUDE The Sun shines most directly near the equator, warming air near the Earths surface. The air absorbs moisture from the equatorial oceans and rises because it is less dense than surrounding air. This warm, wet air cools as it ascends, and the water vapor condenses and falls as rain. For this reason, vast tropical rainforests grow near the equator. The rising equatorial air, which is now drier because of the loss of moisture, flows northward and southward at high altitudes. This air cools, becomes denser, and sinks back toward the Earths surface at about 30 north and south latitudes .As the air falls, it is compressed and becomes warmer, which enables it to hold more water vapor. As a result, water evaporates from the land surface into the air. Because the sinking air absorbs water, the ground surface is dry and rainfall is infrequent. Thus, many of the worlds largest deserts lie at about 30 north and south latitudes.

Climatic conditions
Temperatures of tropical deserts are highest on the earth and the rainfall is the lowest. Noon temperature is 105 to 110F. The highest shade temperature ever recorded was 136.4F at Azizia in Sahara. The sky in the tropical desert remains cloud-free due to the subsiding air of dominant high pressure resulting in large amounts of insolation. The cloudless skies during the day lets insolation in, but also lets much heat out at night. Without the absorptive blanket of clouds, longwave radiation emitted from the Earth readily escapes to space, chilling the nighttime desert air. The high energy input during the day and large loss at night results in an extremely large daily temperature range. Precipitation is low and is erratic in nature. Annual rainfall are less than 10 inches. In Sahara averages are not more than five inches. Coastal areas of Atacama and Kalahari have dense mists because incoming airs are chilled by the cool currents. Sources of water supply in the desert regions are not many. Rivers play very important role in this respect. The Nile has changed the desert land of Egypt into a fertile and rich cultivated area producing long staple cotton. Irrigation has helped a lot in Iraq. Tigris and Euphrates supply water and their combined channel known as Shettal Arab flowing above Basra 120 miles to the Persian Gulf. Indus river crosses the Thar Desert and supports very large irrigation work. In the tropical desert the only substantial source of surface water other than rivers is an oasis, where the groundwater table is near the surface.

Human adaptation
Throughout human history, cultures have adapted to the low water and sparse vegetation of desert ecosystems. Traditionally, many desert societies were nomadic, taking advantage of resources where and when they were available. Two thirds of the worlds crude oil lies beneath the deserts of the Middle East, transforming some of the poorest nations of the world into the richest. The discovery of vast resources of petroleum and their mining in the recent decades have resulted in rapid economic development in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq. In the future, vast arrays of solar cells may convert desert sunlight to electricity. In the river valleys passing through desert region and in scattered cases, agriculture has developed. There are permanent rural settlements and towns in the Nile Valley and delta. Modern irrigation methods have ensured adequate water supply. The Indus Valley in Pakistan and the Imperial Valley in California

are other examples of large tracts of settled agriculture.