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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
Does not have to mean close to the equator.
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.