How would world look like if deserts spread all over it?

Question

If sand-like deserts would spread over all continents and rainforests would thus die out, would that mean there would be no more air to breathe? For deserts to persist in such scope, would the climate have to remain eternal summer? How do you think this would affect the seas with their ecosystems?

Answer 1

There would always be air (atmosphere) but not necessarily in a balance to our liking (e.g. c.20% O2).

That said, I don't think there would be a huge shift in atmospheric gases (certainly not in the short- or medium-term) as there are many forms of marine life that wotrk on photosyntheis and exhale O2 - these would still survive.

'Deserts' and 'sand-like deserts' are not the same thing (you seem to be considering them synoymous hence asking about eternal summer).

A desert is an area of very little rainfall and very little life.

The polar regions are desert hence a world covered in deserts could be a 'snowball Earth' in the grips of an ice age colder than any seen before as much as a hot 'Planet Dune' place.

In fact, a frigid desert is more likely than a sand desert as the hot, sandy desert requires:

a) Sand (it will take quite a few millenia to erode enough rock for that) and, more importantly;

b) Heat. The only mechanism we know of at present for the Earth to become that hot is through a greenhouse effect. This, in turn, would create a large amount of water vapour in the atmosphere both as a consequence and a reinforcement of the greenhouse. This water would be in a constant cycle of precipitation and evaporation - too much rain to be considered a desert.

Quick edit to Common Sense:

I think you'll find that the 'war on terror' has done far more to erode civil and human rights, rip up basic legal protections (e.g. freedom from torture, habeas corpus), increase national insecurity and increase of government control and interference into private lives than anything the "greenhouse gasbags" have done.

However a lack of response to global warming and associated causes has increased US vulnerability to unfriendly foreign influence (e.g. oil dependency), reduced food security and exposed the country to more natural disasters.

Contrary to your paranoid tendencies, there is no secret cabal of 'leftists' trying to take over America, eradicate your rights or subvert the country; the Yale 'Bonesmen' and oilmen who currently run the US like their private fiefdom have already done that!

Answer 2

For decades, environmentalism has been the Left's best excuse for increasing government control over our actions in ways both large and small. It's for Mother Earth! It's for the children! It's for the whales!

But until now, the doomsday-scenario environmental scares they've trumped up haven't been large enough to give the sinister prize they want most of all: total control of American politics, economic activity, and even individual behavior.

With global warming, however, greenhouse gasbags can argue that auto emissions in Ohio threaten people in Paris, and that only global government can tackle such problems.

National sovereignty? Democracy?

Forget it: global warming has now brought the Left closer to global government, statism, and the eradication of individual rights than it has ever been before.

Answer 3

all deserts... over the whole earth? sounds like  Mars

Answer 4

Ever heard of the great depression....the dust bowl stories...look it up...and look at the pictures

Answer 5

Dead & dry

Answer 6

Like Arakis from frank Herberts book Dune

or like mars

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