Sahara Desert Holds TRILLIONS in Natural Resources Than Thought! What Does This Mean for Africa?

Recommendable!

Sahara Turns Green thanks to Climate Change with Palki Sharma

Good news! The desert is blooming thanks to Global Warming and CO2! Unfortunately, the video ends with the usual alarmism and hysteria!

New research reveals why and when the Sahara Desert was periodically green over the past 800,000 years

We still now so little about our climate! Climate models are junk (except for the one used for this study 😉)!

Yes, the climate is always changing and not exactly because of humans!

Unfortunately, the researchers don't say when it will happen the next time again!

"... There is widespread evidence that the Sahara was periodically vegetated in the past, with the proliferation of rivers, lakes and water-dependent animals such as hippos, before it became what is now desert. These North African Humid Periods may have been crucial in providing vegetated corridors out of Africa, allowing the dispersal of various species, including early humans, around the world. ...

The results confirm the North African Humid Periods occurred every 21,000 years and were determined by changes in Earth's orbital precession. This caused warmer summers in the Northern Hemisphere, which intensified the strength of the West African Monsoon system and increased Saharan precipitation, resulting in the spread of savannah-type vegetation across the desert. ..."

From the abstract:

"The Sahara region has experienced periodic wet periods over the Quaternary and beyond. These North African Humid Periods (NAHPs) are astronomically paced by precession which controls the intensity of the African monsoon system. However, most climate models cannot reconcile the magnitude of these events and so the driving mechanisms remain poorly constrained. Here, we utilise a recently developed version of the HadCM3B coupled climate model that simulates 20 NAHPs over the past 800 kyr which have good agreement with NAHPs identified in proxy data. Our results show that precession determines NAHP pacing, but we identify that their amplitude is strongly linked to eccentricity via its control over ice sheet extent. During glacial periods, enhanced ice-albedo driven cooling suppresses NAHP amplitude at precession minima, when humid conditions would otherwise be expected. This highlights the importance of both precession and eccentricity, and the role of high latitude processes in determining the timing and amplitude of the NAHPs. This may have implications for the out of Africa dispersal of plants and animals throughout the Quaternary."

New research reveals why and when the Sahara Desert was green (Secondary source)

New research reveals why and when the Sahara Desert was green (Main source, University of Bristol)  A pioneering study has shed new light on North African humid periods that have occurred over the past 800,000 years and explains why the Sahara Desert was periodically green.

North African humid periods over the past 800,000 years (open access)

Fig. 3: Vegetation reconstructions during composite periods of precession maxima (PMax) and the 20 modelled North African Humid Periods.

Changes of vegetation between humid and arid phases in North Africa. Vegetation zones are based on the minimum precipitation requirements of each vegetation type.

What is Sahara dust and why does it matters so much for the Earth

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff!

"The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world, at 9.2 million km² — only slightly smaller than the entire area of the US. Given its size and geological nature, the Sahara Desert is the main global contributor to atmospheric dust, producing over 400 million tons of dust per year. This dust, most often produced by natural sources, travels as far as Japan, Scandinavia, or the Amazon, where it plays an important role for the Earth’s biology and climate. ...
For hundreds of thousands of years, the Sahara has alternated between a desert and a savanna grassland, changing every 20,000 years. This cycle is caused by the Earth’s precession movement ...

What connects one of the hottest and driest environments on Earth to the wet, lush Amazon forest? Yep, it’s dust.

Much of the Amazon basin is very limited in phosphorus, a key nutrient for many plants. It seems ironic that the Amazon rainforest, one of the most biologically productive places in the world, doesn’t have enough phosphorus, but you can blame it on the rain: rain strips away unused phosphorus as quickly as it appears, and there’s a lot of rain in the Amazon.

It’s remarkable, but the Amazon, like the Atlantic, relies on the Sahara for “fertilization” with key nutrients. ..."

What is Sahara dust and why does it matters so much for the Earth Wind, geology, and chemistry meet up to create this important phenomenon.

Past river activity in northern Africa reveals multiple Sahara greenings during the past 160,000 years

Amazing stuff! It was well known for decades that the Sahara was not always a desert! However, this new research appears to confirm that during the last 160,000 years there were multiple greenings of the Sahara. Any of these greenings may have lasted for several thousand years.

"North African greening phases, during which large rivers ran through the Sahara Desert, occurred repeatedly during the Quaternary and are regarded as key periods for the development of past human populations. However, the timing and mechanisms responsible for the reactivation of the presently dormant fluvial systems remain highly uncertain. Here we present hydroclimate changes over the past 160,000 years, reconstructed from analyses of the provenance of terrestrial sediments in a marine sediment record from the Gulf of Sirte (offshore Libya). By combining high-resolution proxy data with transient Earth system model simulations, we are able to identify the various drivers that led to the observed shifts in hydroclimate and landscapes. ..."

"... It offers a comprehensive picture of when and why there was sufficient rainfall in the Central Sahara to reactivate these rivers. "We found that it is the slight changes in the Earth's orbit and the waxing and waning of polar ice sheets that paced the alternation of humid phases with high precipitation and long periods of almost complete aridity" ...
The fertile periods generally lasted five thousand years and humidity spread over North Africa up to the Mediterranean coast. For the people of that time, this resulted in drastic changes in living conditions, which probably led to large migratory movements in North Africa. ..."

Past river activity in northern Africa reveals multiple Sahara greenings | EurekAlert! Science News The analysis of sediment cores from the Mediterranean Sea combined with Earth system models tells the story of major environmental changes in North Africa over the last 160,000 years

Here is the link to the underlying research paper:

Drivers of river reactivation in North Africa during the last glacial cycle

Credits to:

To a scientist with a hammer (I wish the subject line was not so ridiculous)

When the Sahara Was Green

Very recommendable! Global Warming is a hoax! This happened way before humans produced any significant CO2! Unfortunately, the video is very short on explaining what caused this greening of the Sahara. Apparently, it was the axial tilt or precession cycle of the the earth that brought about this climate change within hundreds or a few thousands of years.