Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?

Sahara Desert Greening Due to Climate Change?
James Owen
for National Geographic News
July 31, 2009

Desertification, drought, and despair—that's what global warming has in store for much of Africa. Or so we hear.

Emerging evidence is painting a very different scenario, one in which rising temperatures could benefit millions of Africans in the driest parts of the continent.

Scientists are now seeing signals that the Sahara desert and surrounding regions are greening due to increasing rainfall.

If sustained, these rains could revitalize drought-ravaged regions, reclaiming them for farming communities.

This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago.

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Max Planck's Claussen said North Africa is the area of greatest disagreement among climate change modelers.

Forecasting how global warming will affect the region is complicated by its vast size and the unpredictable influence of high-altitude winds that disperse monsoon rains, Claussen added.

"Half the models follow a wetter trend, and half a drier trend."