why are the majority of the worlds deserts located at 30 degrees north latitude?
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Air is heated & rises at the equator. The air is forced to about 30 degrees north & south of the equator at high altitude. It starts to cool at these latitudes and starts to descend. As it descends it is heated due to decreasing antitude and increasing atmospheric pressure. This causes the moisture content in the air to decrease resurlting in typically cloudless skies and little rain. This is called a 'Hadley Cell'.\n\nThese latitudes were called the horse latitudes becuase in the days of sailing ships which were often becalmed in these latitudes, sailors were forced to kill livestock on board ships to conserve water and provide food.
294030
Northern Nevada and Utah have great examples of this type of climate. It tends to be warm and dry but does have four seasons. Hard to explain even though I lived in an area like this. It is usually called high desert
379504
Solar heating is more pronounced at the equator where rays are vertical and closely spaced. At higher latitudes there is less heating, rays less dense, more oblique. The tilt of the earth's axis introduces a further, seasonal variability. Seasons occur in opposite months of the year in opposite hemispheres. Winter in the northern hemisphere is simultaneous with Summer in the southern hemisphere.\n\n--assume you are looking at earth broadside, equatorial view, for the following, throughout (no polar views)--\n\nEQUATORIAL HEATING\nAir masses at the equator have an eastward inertia. As they are heated, these masses expand and rise. Keep the inertia in mind as you read all of the following.\n\nConsidering first the northern hemisphere, as this high equatorial rising air pushes to the north it has a higher speed eastward relative to the earth's surface. This is because the eastward inertia of a mass of air varies at different latitudes. \n\nAir at the equator is moving faster, along with the rotating earth, than is air at higher latitudes. Identical for both hemispheres, north and south: Air at higher latitudes has less eastward speed.\n\nOn the equatorial surface cooler air moves in from the northeast and the southeast. This air is moving west because it has less eastwards inertia as it approaches the equator, from higher latitude. These are the Trade Winds, blowing east to west on both sides of the equator.\n\n\nNORTHERN HEMISPHERE\nAs the hot, rising air from the equator cools at higher latitudes and sinks in the latitude 30's region, some moves further north and eastwards, some moves further south and westwards.\n\nSOUTHERN HEMISPHERE\nAs the hot, rising air from the equator cools at higher latitudes and sinks in the latitude 30's region, some moves further south and eastwards, some moves further north and westwards.\n\nThe northern and southern hemispheres are mirror opposites.\nWe see that these movements are caused by the heating effect of the sun. \n\nWe see that in the northern hemisphere cold air moving south veers to the left (westward) and warm air moving north veers to the right (eastward). The accounts for the clockwise highs and counterclockwise lows.\n\nIn the southern hemisphere, cold air moving north veers to the west and warm air moving south veers to the east. The net effect here is counterclockwise highs and clockwise lows.\n\nIf one has a hard time picturing this, just remember, highs and lows spin in opposite directions. Lows are clockwise in the southern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere.\n\nWinds blow from high to low pressure. The denser the isobars (lines of equal pressure) on the weather map, the greater the wind speed. Highs are the directors, lows are the actors.* This means the hurricane will have a fit wherever it is guided by high pressure.\n\n*Rodewald, German meteorologist\n\nThis explanation says little about weather from 30 degee latitudes further north or south. To describe the entire globe in detail is impractical here. The principal forces involved in your question have been described.\n\nFor a more detailed explanation, I recommend OUR ATMOSPHERE, by Theo Loebsack, A Mentor Book\n\nYes, every time I think about all this, my head spins. Try to think very carefully and hard about it occasionally and it will become somewhat clearer.\n\nThe important thing to remember is what is happening on the ground where most of us live and work. Since LOWs are the big actors, remember they are counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.\n\nA very good exercise, especially for sea goers, is to picture the wind directions you would experience from various compass points surrounding a ferocious low. Do this remembering which hemisphere you are in, north or south. Understanding that could mean survival. You want to avoid everything, to the extent possible, but especially the eye wall. The innermost winds are the most horrific, w
337268
The north pole is not on a continent.  It is in the middle of the arctic ocean which has a frozen ice cap.
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North is one of the four cardinal directions, specifically the direction that, in Western culture, is treated as the primary direction: north is used (explicitly or implicitly) to define all other directions; the (visual) top edges of maps usually correspond to the northern edge of the territory represented, unless explicitly stated otherwise or landmarks are considered more useful for that territory than specific directions\n\n\n\nTRUE north, the direction along the earth's surface toward one pole of the earth's rotation, namely the pole that is clearly on one's left when standing at the Equator while facing the rising sun.\n\nMAGNETIC north, the direction along the earth's surface in which horizontal magnetic field strength has its most positive value (but see Flipping of planetary magnetic poles for an eventual event, so rare as to make unlikely any advance agreement on whether one or two retronyms would be involved in the replacement terminology)\n\nSouth is also  one of the four cardinal directions or compass points. It is the opposite of North and at right angles to East and West.SO ONCE NORTH IS FIXED SOUTH IS IT'S OPPOSITE\n\nBy Western convention, the bottom side of a map is South.\n\n\nSo, the real answer to your question is that it's just a convention & has no scientific basis behind it .
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Because they have land closest to the poles. Since our planet is tilted on its axis, the poles are the furthest from the sun and thus have the coldest average temperatures.\n\nOn the opposite side, the equator is often closest to the sun at all times and receives the most sunlight, leading to tropical temperatures throughout the year. Which is why south american and africa also have regions of tropical/desert climates.\n\nHope this sheds some light on things.
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FALSE! actually, About one-fifth of Earth's land surface is desert. to that's 20%. : )\n\ntry this link if your not convince. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert
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Australia  generally arid to semiarid; temperate in south and east; tropical in north \n\nUse this link:\n\nhttp://home.iprimus.com.au/ozthunder/oz/front.html
970654
The formation of deserts has a lot to do with lattitude.  Most deserts are located in sub-tropical areas where high pressure is created by the circulation of air after it is heated in the tropics.  These areas have an almost perminent supply of a high pressure system that prevents a lot of precipitation and allows for extremely high temperatures.
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Higher latitude...\n\n...altitude is something else.\n\nIt has to do with the seas, and the winds. Check the following link for information:
329853
The earth is on an axis so the sun doesnt cover the northern and southern regions as well ........i meant the polar regions in this statement
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They are far apart from one another!\nThey are cold! EXTREMELY COLD! brrrrrrrr \n\nThe South Pole is the southernmost point on the Earth.\nThe North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth.\n\nThe Geographic South Pole is the one of two points where the earth's axis of rotation intersects the surface (the other being the Geographic North Pole). This is the point usually meant when an unspecified "south pole" is mentioned.\nThe Geographic North Pole, also known as True North, is close to the northern point at which the Earth's axis of rotation meets the surface. Geographic North defines latitude 90° North. In whichever direction you travel from here, you are always heading south. The pole is located in the Arctic Ocean. Classically (19th century) this pole was exactly where people believed the pole of rotation met the Earth's surface, but soon astronomers noticed a small apparent variation of latitude as determined for a fixed point on Earth by observing stars. This variation had a period of about 435 days and the periodic part of it is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer. It is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates (latitude, longitude, and elevations or orography) to fixed landforms. Of course, given continental drift and the rising and falling of land due to volcanos, erosion and so on, there is no system in which all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System that does an admirable job. The North pole of this system now defines geographic North and it does not quite coincide with the rotation axis. Also see polar motion.
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Wind Patterns probably refer to the Global Wind Patterns or Prevaling Winds that are associated with different latitudes.\n\nThis is probably best illustrated by the figure from the Texas A&M Desesrts course web site referenced below.\n\nTo summarize, \nthe polar latitudes between 60 and 90 degrees (both north and south) have prevaling "Polar Easterly" winds.\nLatitudes between 30 and 60 degrees (again both north and south) have prevaling "Westerly" winds.\nThe region between 30 degrees north to 30 degrees south have prevaling easterly "Trade Winds."
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(1) Latitude is an imaginary line that runs east and west and connects points of equal latitude on the globe. \n\n(2) The equator marks 0° latitude and makes a great circle that encompasses the Earth at its broadest width.\n\n(3)  All other lines of latitude are parallel to the equator and form smaller circles.
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Basically all of the surface of Mars except small ice caps (frozen CO2) qualifies as desert - no free water, no rain. The major geographic (or areographic, from Ares - Greek for Mars) features were named after elevations etc. when all the information about Mars came  from early telescopes.\n\nThe Wikipedia article linked below has a topographic map.
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coldest in antarctica n hottest somewhere in the sahara desert
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OK!\nCold deserts are at altitudes above the tree line on mountains and outside the Artic/Antartic Circles. Permafrost is the rule and so plants that grow must be ephemeral (short lived), mosses and lichens. \n\nSorry but I can't help more than taht>