Jakarta – The Sahara Desert is one of the most arid areas in the world. But do you know that humanity will still see a period of greening of the Sahara Desert.
According to detikInet, a new study shows that this vast region of North Africa will change from arid desert to lush green forest every 21 thousand years or so. The last period the Sahara became a green forest occurred between 15 thousand and 5 thousand years ago.
The research confirms that this is not just a strange change, but rather part of a cyclical transformation that changes the region from dry to humid approximately every 21 thousand years.
“The cyclical transformation of the Sahara Desert into a savanna and forest ecosystem is one of the most extraordinary environmental changes on the planet,” said Dr Edward Armstrong, lead author of the study and climate scientist at Helsinki University Bristol University as quoted by IFL Science.
This research aims to better understand the so-called ‘North African Humid Period’ over the last 800 thousand years using a recently developed climate model.
Their study confirms the idea that periodic wet phases in the Sahara are driven by changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is generally agreed that the ‘greening’ of the Sahara is caused by the Earth’s wobble on its axis, which impacts the seasons and determines the amount of energy received by this part of the planet. This ultimately influences the strength of the African Monsoon, which helps control how much vegetation is spread across this vast region.
This article has appeared on detikInet, read in full here.
(mso/mso)
2023-09-23 21:00:42
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