General Facts about deserts
13 percent of the world's population live in deserts. Evaporation rates in deserts are often 20 times the annual precipitation. A temperature of 58° C (136.4° F) has been recorded in the shade at Azizia in Libya. No rain fell for over 40 years in the Atacama desert in Chile. Night temperatures in some deserts can fall below freezing. Sand dunes can reach heights of up to 300m. Sand covers less than 20 per cent of the world's desert areas. Dust from the Sahara has occasionally been carried as far afield as the UK and Germany. The Sahara Desert accounts for around 8 per cent of the world's land area. There are an estimated 1,200 species of plant to be found in the Sahara. In the last 50 years the Sahara has spread south to cover an extra 65 million hectares. Deserts cover 1/5th of earth's surface. |
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