Im interested to know why Australia seems to have the largest continuous area of arid land (probably being the Sahara), and very little of it is green, arable land? I assume a lot of it has to do with weather patterns, but I’d love to know the specifics. Thanks!
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So the rotation of the earth create dominant winds (ore prevailing winds). I won’t go into the physics of why the rotation create this (it’s a bit more than ELI5), but the point is that the end result is [this](https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/prevailing-winds/).
From that picture you can kind of see what is happening. When dominant winds meet at 0 degree of latitude it create an accumulation of humidity which mean the land is greener. At latitude 30 N and S, the dominant winds are going away from each other pulling the humidity away and creating more dry climate. Australia is around 30 degrees S where the dominant winds are pulling the humidity away from it.
It’s more complicated than that, but it give you the overall picture. That’s why the desert are usually found at around 30 degrees of latitude South and North.
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