When was this research established? I've heard about this a few years ago but when was it found that Arabia was green historically?
Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
21–30 of 102 posts
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even natural climate changes can be problematic, such as drier climates precipitating the fall of the Roman empire or the late bronze age collapse.
Or The Samalas eruption - which is believed to have caused the Little Ice Age - and killed 90% of Europeans & North Americans at the time (55M people). I imagine many millions of large mammals and birds and insects also died.
See also the Year Without Summer, 1816.
Apparently Frankenstein and Dracula were both born that 'summer' at one of Byron's gatherings. Something to pass the time indoors.
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#23It obviously doesn't cover the why of Sahara's greening, but for anyone who has access to BBC iPlayer, the following programme [1] has a nice summary of humanity's journey out of Africa.
It's amazing that the majority of the world's population is descended from the couple of hundred individuals that left during one of these greening periods.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00kfqps/the-incredibl...
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#24I've heard about some efforts to regreen the desert by careful planting and geoforming. Anyone know anything about this? It would be cool if it could work, even partially.
There are projects going on in both China and on the African continent. Search for "Great Green Wall".
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#25I've heard about some efforts to regreen the desert by careful planting and geoforming. Anyone know anything about this? It would be cool if it could work, even partially.
There are projects going on in both China and on the African continent. Search for "Great Green Wall".
China has gone through various tries of this for the last couple of decades. The first tries failed horribly because of lack of water and they sent the wrong trees to be planted for the ecology they were going into. I'm not sure how their current try is going, we will just have to see when/if the dust storms stop coming in the spring.
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#26Carbon emissions ACCELERATED climate change. Climate change is natural. It's the ACCELERATED change that is the problem. Not enough time for species to adjust.
Meteor strikes are also natural. That doesn’t mean they are desirable.
The meteor isn’t the problem. It’s the delta-V of the meteor which is the problem.
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#27I've heard about some efforts to regreen the desert by careful planting and geoforming. Anyone know anything about this? It would be cool if it could work, even partially.
Check out the work being done by https://justdiggit.org/
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#28I think it was in Michael Palin's show Sahara, he's talking to some locals living in a village in the middle of the desert, and while I'm wondering why anyone would ever settle out there, the person being interviewed relayed that many more people used to live there before it became a desert. It wasn't that they moved out there, they were all that was left. Kind of post-apocalyptic.
Edit: found the mention, he's talking to folks from the dogon tribe in mali, [0]@29min - 30min says that the area was heavily forested 500 years ago. The location is the bandiagara escarpment, old cliff dwellings [1]. All the episode of Sahara are on youtube, I highly recommend the series.
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#29I've heard about some efforts to regreen the desert by careful planting and geoforming. Anyone know anything about this? It would be cool if it could work, even partially.
You might as well be referring to permaculture generally. It’s exactly about careful, intentional planting and working with the environment rather than trying to tame it.
Geoff Lawton’s Greening the Desert Project comes to mind in particular: https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org/
Re: Why and when the Sahara Desert was green: new research
#30So with the co2 forcing function, is it possible that Canada be glaciated again And that the Sahara be green?
That would fly in the face of conventional thinking which is that Canada will be temperate and the Sahara will be more arid.