The Sahara Desert, which covers pretty much all of North Africa, is the world's largest desert, and one of the most desolate places on the planet. But it wasn't always like that. As recently as the Oligocene, the Sahara was a wet, green place, with swamps and rivers, bordering the ancient Tethys seaway. More recently than that, the Sahara was a grassland. But after the Tethys was closed, the Sahara grew increasingly drier, becoming at last the bleak, hostile landscape it is now. The advance of the glaciations, starting about 34 million years ago, saw a cycle we are still in today, in which mile-thick ice sheets advance and recede, in geological time, like window blinds. All of that combined to make the Sahara a desert.
That may be changing, and it's thanks to that substance that climate scolds are constantly badgering us about: Carbon dioxide, or CO2. New satellite imagery is revealing something truly remarkable: The Sahara is greening.
For decades, the narrative surrounding the Sahara was one of unstoppable desertification—a vast, arid landscape slowly swallowing everything in its path, including Europe alarmists have warned.
However, recent scientific findings are painting a much more hopeful and complex picture. Thanks to advanced satellite technology and Artificial Intelligence, researchers have discovered something remarkable: The edges of the Sahara and the Sahel zone are becoming significantly greener.
In the past, satellite imagery was often too “blurry” to detect individual trees in arid regions. Sparse vegetation was frequently overlooked, leading to an underestimation of the actual biomass.
By using high-resolution satellite data and deep-learning algorithms, scientists have now been able to count individual trees and shrubs. The results are stunning: there are billions of trees in areas previously thought to be mostly barren. This isn’t just a correction of old data; it’s evidence of a real ecological shift.
So why is this happening? Yes, it's climate change, in part, the continual warming that has been ongoing since the peak of the last major glaciation. At the peak of these glaciations, much of Earth's water was locked up in those mile-thick ice sheets; when the climate warmed, ending the last major glaciation, much of that water was released. That's why you can't walk from Siberia to Alaska anymore, or from Belgium to Britain. Sea levels rise, rainfall increases, and these effects are still making themselves felt. There is more water for rain, too.
Also, there has been some increase in CO2, which is responsible for a lot of the greening that's taking place, not just in the Sahara, but in many places. Turns out that CO2 is good for plant life. And, finally, there has been a general decrease in fires along the fringes of the desert.
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The Sahara desert may be reverting to what it was shortly after the Tethys closed: A vast savannah, interspersed with open woodlands. Fertile. Productive.
Here's why this matters to the climate change argument: This is a great example of how climate, like so many of Earth's cycles, has a way of balancing itself out.
This findings (sic) have profound implications for our planet: More trees mean more carbon dioxide is being pulled from the atmosphere. Trees provide shade, reduce soil erosion, and help retain moisture in the ground, making the environment more livable for local communities.
Moreover, a greener landscape supports a wider variety of insects, birds, and mammals, strengthening the local ecosystem.
This reminds us that nature is resilient and that our understanding of the Earth’s ecosystems is constantly evolving. The desert is not just a place of sand and heat—it is a place of hidden life, slowly reclaiming its ground.
There is life in the Sahara now, of course. There are scattered oases, where groundwater makes its way to the surface, allowing some vegetation to survive; palm trees, forbs. And, of course, there is the vast, fertile Nile valley, which gives us a great example of what a desert can be if one just brings a little water to it.
There are desert-adapted animals, not only the famous camels but reptiles and insects, many of whom do very well in arid, hot places. But now the desert may well bloom. New habitats will open for humans and wildlife. Creatures of the vast savannahs of the south may move north as these lands become more hospitable.
Of course, this all won't happen in a single human lifetime. These are, again, vast systems. The last major glaciation ended about 11,700 years ago, and the effects are still being felt, still making themselves known. The release of all that water into the Earth's vast, chaotic climate is still having an effect. And yes, the (slight) increase in CO2 in the atmosphere is having an effect, a greening effect, an effect that in this case, maybe in a hundred years, maybe in a thousand, will open up vast tracts of desert.
The planet's an amazing place. Its systems are awe-inspiring, in effect and in time scale. It would be nice if the climate scolds would learn something about these vast systems, instead of pestering the rest of us over humanity's comparatively puny impact.
