I always thought this less sandy southern side of the desert was called the Sahel, not the Sahara? or Is the Sahel part of the Sahara?
this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2024
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The Sahel is the transition zone between the savannahs further south and the Sahara. In the image above; its where it gets noticeably less green but still distinct from the Sahara
Uh... This is the result of a land reclamation project that's been in place for more than 15 years and not at all the result in "a shift in the weather".
Not to mention that without the water retention infrastructure built over the years, increased rainfall wouldn’t be much good.
How insane would it be if climate change pushed everyone back into Africa? That Africa ended up being the only remaining easily hospitable continent on the earth. From Africa we were born, and in Africa we will die.
You mean… the literal focus areas of the great green wall is turning green after almost 20 years of work?
Like, yeah storms are pushing in where maybe they shouldn’t but also this is shit multiple countries full of people have been working at since 2007.
It's not that simple. The green belt for starters is not a single project but many. And it's nowhere this big unfortunately. They are trying to, in the best scenario, prevent the desert from expanding. This event is not caused by a wall of trees, and the effects of the green belt wouldn't appear suddenly from one year to the other. It's probably a temporary weather anomaly or maybe it will become a regular thing like el niño.
It is a wet year, so things are going to be more green than last, but the great green wall is a lot more than simply trees. It’s a ton of agricultural tricks to help retain the little rainfall they do get. So in a year where they get a ton, it will get a lot more green as the water is actually being retained. Iirc they dig a ton of multi levelled crescent shapes to retain the water and plant various levels of crops to use said water. Honestly a lot of it is just breaking up the dry ass ground over there and keeping water in it so plants can start growing. Once it does though, there’s better ground that on a good rainy season will grow plenty more greenery.
But yeah, it’s not JUST the wall. It’s also a very wet year, but the odd two combined make it a lot more green because usually in a rainy season that dry ass ground is so hard most things won’t grow anyways. But after years of cultivation, things can grow there.
This will be great for the green belt for sure. Specially because a lot of efforts have been made to try to retain more rain water instead of it washing of to the ocean.
You just know this is going to change some minds about climate-change, but in a bad, pro-climate-change kind of way.
How much gold is under the antarctic ice sheet? let's find out
There isn’t much green in the Sahara Desert, but after an unusual influx of rain, the color can be seen from space creeping into parts of one of the driest places in the world.
Satellites recently captured plant life blooming in parts of the typically arid southern Sahara after storms moved there when they shouldn’t. It has also caused catastrophic flooding. And scientists say a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution is making both more likely.