4 ms·

I think the Australians might have a few objections to that proposal... As one of them, I know I do at least! It is interesting how much more archipelago-like

I think the Australians might have a few objections to that proposal... As one of them, I know I do at least! It is interesting how much more archipelago-like Antarctica is. I wonder if that would mean fewer interior deserts than a large continent like Australia has

seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Doesn’t Antarctica technically have the largest deserts in the world?
- nirimda 4y ago
  Only because it's at the south pole. If we tilted the earth a bit, it would warm up and start raining. But if we tilted the earth a bit, Australia could probably also get wetter. As far as I understand it, the dryness of Australia, the Sahara etc are caused by the particular location from the equator, where moist air is lifted and brought to the equator and dumped there as rain. So if we pushed Australia further from the equator it would get a bit damper and maybe Indonesia would dry out. I recommend we don't adopt this program of rotating the earth. It's almost certainly worse than just inventing fission power and pumping desalinated sea water to wherever we want to de-desertify. We'd probably also be better off if we wasted quintillions of dollaeuroyuans on a program to terraform Mars that ends in complete failure and the deaths of millions of workers over a century, but that's also an outcome I recommend we avoid.
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    The evidence does not seem to follow this logic. There are lots of countries closer to the equator - they are wetter.. large body masses have continental clima, which enocourages the growth of dessert, but they usually do so only when the war of forrest vs savannah is lost by the forrest. Which can cling to areas quiet defiantly, for example the last big forrests in syria, that once covered the middle east
    - jeddy3 4y ago
      To be fair, they said particular location from the equator. Does not have to mean close to the equator.
  - spiralx 4y ago
    The dryness of Australia comes from the fact that current bring cold Antarctic water up to its west coast which leads to dry winds that blow eastward, which compounds with the complete lack of any mountain ranges to serve as rain shields to leave most of the continent dry. Even the mountains in the east of the continent are barely high enough to form a rain shield, if they were even a bit smaller then the east coast would be as dry as the rest of the continent. Moist tropical air barely reaches the very top of Australia - instead it hits places like Java, where the abundant rainfall and numerous active volcanoes provide ridiculously fertile land that currently supports 150 million people - 5x that of Australia - despite being 50 times smaller.
nirimda 4y ago
> I think the Australians might have a few objections to that proposal... As one of them, I know I do at least! Well, Australia claims about half of Antarctica so as long as we can enforce that claim maybe it's not the end of the country. Just have to declare part of it "New Southern New South Wales" and take it from there. > I wonder if that would mean fewer interior deserts than a large continent like Australia has. There Arabian pensinsula are the Sahara are surrounded on three sides by sea, but they're still very dry. The Sahara and Arabian deserts go right up to the coast. As mentioned in my reply to your other reply, as far as I know it's not a lack of water but what happens to the water once it's evaporated that causes the dryness in those areas - it goes up into the high atmosphere and comes down in rain over the tropics. Wish I remembered the name though.
- someNameIG 4y ago
  > Well, Australia claims about half of Antarctica so as long as we can enforce that claim maybe it's not the end of the country. I have always wondered how this would turn out. Currently not many other countries recognise our claims, but so far there's been no reason to enforce them. Given out proximity we are in a good position to enforce them, and the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto would love access to all the possible resources.
- valarauko 4y ago
  > as far as I know it's not a lack of water but what happens to the water once it's evaporated that causes the dryness in those areas - it goes up into the high atmosphere and comes down in rain over the tropics. Wish I remembered the name though. It's the other way around - the subtropical ridges are high pressure high altitude masses of dry air that fall to the surface around 30 N & S. This dry air is then sucked back to the equator as the Trade Winds, which further dry out the sub tropics. > Wish I remembered the name though. Hadley cell?

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

Doesn’t Antarctica technically have the largest deserts in the world?

nirimda 4y ago
Only because it's at the south pole. If we tilted the earth a bit, it would warm up and start raining. But if we tilted the earth a bit, Australia could probably also get wetter. As far as I understand it, the dryness of Australia, the Sahara etc are caused by the particular location from the equator, where moist air is lifted and brought to the equator and dumped there as rain. So if we pushed Australia further from the equator it would get a bit damper and maybe Indonesia would dry out. I recommend we don't adopt this program of rotating the earth. It's almost certainly worse than just inventing fission power and pumping desalinated sea water to wherever we want to de-desertify. We'd probably also be better off if we wasted quintillions of dollaeuroyuans on a program to terraform Mars that ends in complete failure and the deaths of millions of workers over a century, but that's also an outcome I recommend we avoid.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  The evidence does not seem to follow this logic. There are lots of countries closer to the equator - they are wetter.. large body masses have continental clima, which enocourages the growth of dessert, but they usually do so only when the war of forrest vs savannah is lost by the forrest. Which can cling to areas quiet defiantly, for example the last big forrests in syria, that once covered the middle east
  - jeddy3 4y ago
    To be fair, they said particular location from the equator. Does not have to mean close to the equator.
- spiralx 4y ago
  The dryness of Australia comes from the fact that current bring cold Antarctic water up to its west coast which leads to dry winds that blow eastward, which compounds with the complete lack of any mountain ranges to serve as rain shields to leave most of the continent dry. Even the mountains in the east of the continent are barely high enough to form a rain shield, if they were even a bit smaller then the east coast would be as dry as the rest of the continent. Moist tropical air barely reaches the very top of Australia - instead it hits places like Java, where the abundant rainfall and numerous active volcanoes provide ridiculously fertile land that currently supports 150 million people - 5x that of Australia - despite being 50 times smaller.

nirimda 4y ago

> I think the Australians might have a few objections to that proposal... As one of them, I know I do at least! Well, Australia claims about half of Antarctica so as long as we can enforce that claim maybe it's not the end of the country. Just have to declare part of it "New Southern New South Wales" and take it from there. > I wonder if that would mean fewer interior deserts than a large continent like Australia has. There Arabian pensinsula are the Sahara are surrounded on three sides by sea, but they're still very dry. The Sahara and Arabian deserts go right up to the coast. As mentioned in my reply to your other reply, as far as I know it's not a lack of water but what happens to the water once it's evaporated that causes the dryness in those areas - it goes up into the high atmosphere and comes down in rain over the tropics. Wish I remembered the name though.

someNameIG 4y ago
> Well, Australia claims about half of Antarctica so as long as we can enforce that claim maybe it's not the end of the country. I have always wondered how this would turn out. Currently not many other countries recognise our claims, but so far there's been no reason to enforce them. Given out proximity we are in a good position to enforce them, and the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto would love access to all the possible resources.
valarauko 4y ago
> as far as I know it's not a lack of water but what happens to the water once it's evaporated that causes the dryness in those areas - it goes up into the high atmosphere and comes down in rain over the tropics. Wish I remembered the name though. It's the other way around - the subtropical ridges are high pressure high altitude masses of dry air that fall to the surface around 30 N & S. This dry air is then sucked back to the equator as the Trade Winds, which further dry out the sub tropics. > Wish I remembered the name though. Hadley cell?