Did you know the Sahara Desert is shrinking?
The southern Saharan desert is in retreat, making farming viable again in what were some of the most arid parts of Africa.
Burkina Faso, one of the West African countries devastated by drought and advancing deserts 20 years ago, is growing so much greener than families who fled to wetter coastal regions are starting to go home.
New research confirming this remarkable environmental turnaround is to be presented to Burkina Faso’s ministers and international aid agencies in November. And it is not just Burkina Faso.
New Scientist has learned that a separate analysis of satellite images completed this summer reveals that dunes are retreating right across the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Vegetation is ousting sand across a swathe of land stretching from Mauritania on the shores of the Atlantic to Eritrea 6000 kilometres away on the Red Sea coast.
Nor is it just a short-term trend. Analysts say the gradual greening has been happening since the mid-1980s, though has gone largely unnoticed. Only now is the evidence being pieced together.
Yes, it is a bit dated, from back in 2002. But, if George Bush’s TANG records from back in the early 70’s are relevant, why not a 4 year old study?
Is this proof that global warming is not really happening, and that the Earth is actually getting cooler? Not according to the Guardian:
Global warming could significantly increase rainfall in Saharan Africa within a few decades, potentially ending the severe droughts that have devastated the region, a new study suggests.
The discovery was made by climate experts at the Royal Meteorological Institute in De Bilt, the Netherlands, who used a computer model to predict changes in the Sahel region – a wide belt stretching from the Atlantic to the horn of Africa that includes Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti.
Global warming will heat the land more than the sea, leading to changes in air pressure and weather. When the Netherlands team simulated this effect and combined it with warming caused by the expected rises in greenhouse gas emissions between 1980 and 2080, they found Sahel rainfall in the July to September period jumped 1-2mm a day.
Some scientists suspected that global warming might increase rainfall in the region, causing the so-called greening of the Sahara, but these are the biggest predicted increases so far.
Huh? So it is global warming that is increasing the rainfall that is causing the Sahara to retreat? This is the problem with the scientific research into climate change. Theories abound. Which one is correct?
I am not a big fan of computer models when applied to weather. They cannot accurately tell us what a hurricane will do, nor what the weather the next 10 days will be exactly. So, how am I to believe what the Guardian reported? I will not discount it out of hand, but, more evidence is needed.
Climatology is about as much of a true science as is psychiatry.
Which means, it ain’t much of a science at all.
Yup. Based on half guess work and the what someone believes may happen.
Seems to me like Mother Nature is just protecting herself by providing more “green” space to balance global ecology..but then I drive an SUV!