this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2024
413 points (99.3% liked)
Map Enthusiasts
3492 readers
305 users here now
For the map enthused!
Rules:
-
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
-
be nice
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Equator is dark.
edit: equator makes dark, see H1jack's answer.
Except that isn't the equator it's further south
Yeah it's pretty neat to learn about. The high heat of the equator causes clouds coming off the ocean to the east to drop all their rain, creating the rainforest. Then the now dry winds travel north and south off the equator, bringing lots of heat and dryness, which gives us the Sahara!
You can find the equator roughly in the centre between the Sahara, the dark horizontal area in the north, and the Namib desert, the dark area in the south west.
And all of that creates massive dust clouds that travel across to South America where it is deposited and gave birth to the lushness of the Amazon.
That was my first thought when I saw it too, but I went and looked and was reminded how bad my geography knowledge is!
There's really not much in the southern hemisphere. I spent most of my life in Australia and generally thought of Africa and South America as being down under with us, but 2/3 of Africa is above the equator and even 10% of South America is "north".
And hot.
And dry
And full of cabanas.
Lol