FirstDigest

Today I was reading on the Internet about the biggest deserts on Earth and I tried to “compile” a TOP 5 of them. So, let’s start:

1. Antarctic Desert

With 14.4 million km² (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice, which averages at least 1.6 kilometres in thickness. Antarctica is the coldest, driest and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Since there is little precipitation, except at the coasts, the interior of the continent is technically the largest desert in the world. There are no permanent human residents, but a number of governments maintain permanent research stations throughout the continent and only cold-adapted plants and animals survive there for long period of time.
Antarctica is the coldest place on Earth. At the 3-kilometer from Vostok Station in Antarctica, scientists recorded Earth’s lowest temperature: −89 °C. Antarctica is colder than the Arctic for two reasons. First, much of the continent is more than 3 kilometers (2 mi) above sea level, and temperature decreases with elevation. Second, the Arctic Ocean covers the north polar zone: the ocean’s relative warmth is transferred through the icepack and prevents temperatures in the Arctic regions from reaching the extremes typical of the land surface of Antarctica.
The climate of Antarctica does not allow extensive vegetation. A combination of freezing temperatures, poor soil quality, lack of moisture, and lack of sunlight inhibit the flourishing of plants. As a result, plant life is limited to mostly mosses and liverworts. Land fauna is nearly completely invertebrate.
What to do if you still want to get there despite the above extreme conditions? Well there is some land, water and air infrastructure that can lead you there.
Land transport in Antarctica is usually by foot (skis, snowshoes) or vehicles (tracked vehicles like snow mobiles and bulldozers and in the past dog sleds). There is currently a testing project for auto vehicle using a series of Volkswagen Beetles, the first production car to be used in Antarctica, but due to poor road infrastructure and windy conditions limits the use of this vehicles.
Antarctica’s only harbor is at McMurdo Station. Most coastal stations have offshore anchorages, and supplies are transferred from ship to shore by small boats, barges, and helicopters.A number of tour boats, ranging from large motorized vessels to small sailing yachts, visit the Antarctic Peninsula during the summer months (January-March). Most are based in Argentina.
Transport in Antarctica takes place by air, using airplanes and helicopters. Antarctica has 20 airports, but there are no developed public-access airports or landing facilities. Helicopter pads are available at 27 stations. Antarctic airports are subject to severe restrictions and limitations resulting from extreme seasonal and geographic conditions and advance approval from the respective governmental or nongovernmental operating organization is required for landing.

2. Sahara

The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert and the world’s second largest desert after Antarctica. At over 9,000,000 square kilometers, it covers most parts of Northern Africa stretching from the Red Sea to the outskirts of the Atlantic Ocean. Sahara is almost as large as the continental United States, and is larger than Australia. Sahara has a history that may go back as much as 3 million years. It has been reported that Sahara is expanding south by as much as 48 km per year, overwhelming degraded grasslands taking over the dry tropical savanna that has defined the Sahara’s southern limit. Global warming and poor farming methods have been given as possible causes. The center of the Sahara is hyper-arid, with little vegetation. The northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis where moisture collects.
Dromedary camels and goats are the most domesticated animals found in the Sahara. Because of its qualities of sobriety, endurance and speed, the dromedary is the favorite animal used by nomads. Among wild animals you will find there scorpions, lizards, the Saharan cheetah which lives in Niger, Mali and Chad, the ostrich which is a flightless bird, the fennec which is an omnivore.
The Sahara comprises several distinct ecoregions, whose variations in temperature, rainfall, elevation, and soils harbor distinct communities of plants and animals. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the ecoregions of the Sahara include: Atlantic coastal desert, North Saharan steppe and woodlands, Sahara desert, South Saharan steppe and woodlands, West Saharan montane woodlands, Tibesti-Jebel Uweinat montane woodlands and Saharan halopytics.
Transportation and accommodation are really a problem in this area. Best is if you want to visit to hire a guide and make all the arrangements before you arrive there. Western Sahara has no railways, and only 6,200km of roads, of which 1,350km are metaled. Ports include Ad Dakhla, Cabo Bojador, Laayoune (El Aaiun). The longest conveyor belt in the world is 100 km long, from the phosphate mines of Bu Craa to the coast south of Laayoune. There are 11 airfields, 3 with paved runways, and one helipad.

3. Arabian Desert

The Arabian Desert is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and Iraq. It occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers. At its center is the Rub’al-Khali, one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. The climate is extremely dry, and temperatures oscillate between extreme heat and seasonal nighttime freezes. Most of the Rub’al-Khali is classified as hyper-arid. Temperatures range 40-50°C, in summer, with an average temperature of 5-15°C in winter, though it can go below 0°C. Daily extremes are very important. The Rub’al-Khali has very limited floristic diversity. There are only 37 species, 20 recorded in the main body of the sands and 17 around the outer margins. Among these 37 species, only one or two are endemic. Vegetation is very diffuse but fairly evenly distributed, with some interruptions of near sterile dunes. Very little trees may be found except at the outer margin. Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed lizards are just some of the desert-adapted species that survive in this extreme environment, which features everything from red dunes to deadly quicksand.
The area is home to several different people, languages and cultures, with Shi’a and Sunni Islam the predominant faiths. The major ethnicities are: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmeni, Assyrians and the languages: Arabic, Kurdish, Aramaic, Armenian. I tried to find some information about transportation and accommodation in the Arabian Desert but found nothing (except for the well known travel agencies offers to Saudi Arabia, but that is not desert but city offers).

4.  Gobi Desert

The Gobi, meaning gravel-covered plain, is the largest desert region in Asia. It covers area in China and southern Mongolia. The desert basins of the Gobi are bounded by the Altai Mountains and the grasslands and steppes of Mongolia on the north, by the Tibetan Plateau to the southwest, and by the North China Plain to the southeast. The Gobi is made up of several distinct ecological and geographic regions based on variations in climate and topography. This desert is the fourth largest in the world.The Gobi measures over 1,500 km from southwest to northeast and 800 km from north to south. The desert is widest in the west, along the line joining the Baghrash Kol and the Lop Nor . It occupies an arc of land 1,295,000 square km in area. Much of the Gobi is not sandy but is covered with bare rock.The Gobi is most notable in history as part of the great Mongol Empire, and as the location of several important cities along the Silk Road.
The Gobi desert is a cold desert, and it is not uncommon to see frost and occasionally snow on its dunes. Besides being quite far north, it is also roughly 900 meters above sea level, which further contributes to its low temperatures.Additional moisture reaches parts of the Gobi in winter as snow is blown by the wind from the Siberian Steppes. These winds cause the Gobi to reach extremes of temperature ranging from –40°C in Winter to +50°C in Summer.
The Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossil finds, including the first dinosaur eggs.
These deserts and the surrounding regions sustain many animals, including black-tailed gazelles, marbled polecats, bactrian camels and sandplovers, and are occasionally visited by snow leopards, brown bears, and wolves. The desert features a number of drought-adapted shrubs such as gray sparrow’s saltwort, gray sagebrush, and low grasses such as needle grass and bridlegrass.
Currently, the Gobi desert is expanding at an alarming rate, in a process known as desertification. The expansion is particularly rapid on the southern edge into China, which has seen 3,600 square km of grassland overtaken every year by the Gobi Desert.

5. Patagonian Desert

The Patagonian Desert is the largest desert in the Americas and is the 5th largest desert in the world by area, occupying 673,000 square km. It is located primarily in Argentina with small parts in Chile and is bounded by the Andes, to its west, and the Atlantic Ocean to its east, in the region of Patagonia, southern Argentina.The Patagonian Desert is the largest continental landmass south of the 40° parallel and is a large cold winter desert where the temperature rarely exceeds 12°C and averages just 3°C. The region experiences about seven months of summer and five months of winter. Frost is not uncommon in the desert but, due to the very dry condition year round, snow is. Before the Andes were formed, the region was likely covered in rainforests. However, after the formation of the Andes, ash from nearby volcanoes covered the forests and mineral-saturated waters seeped into the logs, thus fossilizing the trees and creating one of the world’s best preserved petrified forests in the desert’s center. The Patagonian is mainly composed of gravel plains and plateaus with sandstone canyons and clay shapes dotting the landscape, sculpted by the desert wind. The region encompassing the desert, however, has many diverse features. Ephemeral rivers, lakes, and drainage deposits from the Andes’ spring melt form annually, hosting a variety of waterfowl and aquatic grasses. A variety of glacial, fluvial, and volcanic deposits are also found in the region and have significantly affected the desert’s climate over time, especially contributing to the gravel sediments covering parts of the Patagonian. The desert is quite windy as well, a result of the rain shadow effect and descending cool mountain air.
Despite the harsh desert environment, a number of animals venture into and live in the Patagonian. The burrowing owl, lesser rhea, guanaco, tuco-tuco, mara, pygmy armadillo, Patagonian weasel, puma, Patagonian gray fox, desert iguana, Jumping Cow Spider, and various species of eagle and hawk are a few of the variety of animals living in the region. The flora of the region is quite common for its climate and includes several species of desert shrubs like Acantholippia and Benthamiella and tuft grasses like Stipa and Poa. Aquatic grasses and larger flora exist on the outskirts of the desert and around the ephemeral lakes that form from the Andes’ runoff.
The desert has hosted various indigenous peoples in its past, as evidenced by cave paintings in the area. The area is sparsely populated today and those that do live here survive mainly by the raising of livestock such as sheep and goats. Resource mining, especially of oil, gas, and coal in parts of the region, is another way humans interact with and influence the desert environment. Poaching and hunting of some of the animals, like the various species of foxes, has further pressured the already fragile ecosystem.