Land with relentless sun and rippling sand, the Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the World and one of the driest regions on Earth. But this may change very soon. NASA has released a satellite image that captured the desert's shift from brown to green, with plant life popping up everywhere, adding color to the typically arid land. A dry climate with low levels of vegetation traditionally characterizes deserts. Sahara has been much greener than usual as of late.
Why this is happening? Is it a cause for celebration or a sign of devastation? The Sahara Desert in North Africa spans an area of more than 9 million square kilometers. It is the World’s largest hot desert, but according to Scientists, the Sahara is like a large open-air museum with the shifting sand and weathering that brings up ancient landscapes from a bygone era. Thousands of years ago, the Sahara was nothing like as it is today.
It was home to lush greenery packed with lakes, rivers and even forests. The Sahara is an immense data bank on which to explore and analyze. It can tell us what climate change can do to a region, can affect landscapes and civilizations, can turn a Sahara brimming with life into one of the hottest and driest places on the Earth. Today, the global environment is witnessing this shift once again, but this time climate change is taking Sahara back to its roots.
Between July and September every year rainfall in North of the equator in Africa increases due the monsoon season. Such stormy weather occurs when the tropical air from near the equator meets the hot, dry air from the north of the continent. Over the past few months, the region witnessed heavy rainfall. As a result, plants are growing across the desert, especially in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. These are generally treeless landscapes and rarely receive any rain but now green shoots are approaching across these regions. Currently, considering the region's history, this is not entirely unusual. The Sahara looks like a desert, but when the rain pours in, everything starts greening fast. Plant life begins to sprout.
The Flora may look pretty, but this is a devastating sign of the things to come. Climate change is changing the tracks of storms in Africa; it has moved the storm system northward, which is why rainfall in the region has higher levels and is more frequent. Within a period of time, North Africa received a year's worth of rainfall. So typically, dry areas like Niger, Chad, Sudan, Libya and Egypt have received more than 400 % of rainfall since July.
The most significant increase in greenery this year was in southern Chad, southern Sudan and Eritrea, parts of Mali and Niger. Sudan and Eritrea had the highest increases in rainfall. Sudan’s wave of lushness followed an extratropical cyclone in the North-Western Sahara on September 7 and 8, bringing a downpour of rain to regions that hardly receive any. According to NASA's Earth Observatory The northward shift of the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone) and the greening of the Sahara likely have two catalysts: the transition from El Niño to La Niña and worsening climate change. Climate change is also warming the region, forcing the ITCZ boundary higher. In addition, higher CO2 emissions, like those from fossil oil and non-renewable energy sources, may cause the ITCZ to shift more often.
The catastrophic rainfall has so far put 4 million people in 14 countries at flood risk. According to the World Food Programme, some regions received more rain than usual, whereas others have received less, putting them in danger of drought. The Sahara Desert is six times wetter than it should be. Meanwhile, because the storms have shifted, some countries that should be getting more rainfall, like Nigeria and Cameroon are getting lesser rains, received between 50%-80% of their typical rainfall since July. Scientists say, this is only the beginning. Climate change is disrupting the season, causing the natural disasters more badly and inviting significant consequences.
Therefore, the Sahara looks fascinating with its newfound greenery, but this is not a cause for celebration. It is important to take climate change and its consequences seriously and reduce carbon emissions for a continued eco-friendly environment, for a better future.
