Global warming making Sahara turn green

National Geographic:

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.

...

Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.

The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan.

The transition may be occurring because hotter air has more capacity to hold moisture, which in turn creates more rain, said Martin Claussen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany, who was not involved in the new study.

"The water-holding capacity of the air is the main driving force," Claussen said.

...


I have argued before that the argument of rising sea levels overlooks the dynamic effect on climate caused by increased rain as a result of more water rising into the atmosphere. We see the effect every summer on the Gulf coast as warm air over the Gulf of Mexico becomes saturated with moisture and moves over land looks for hot spots to dump its load of precipitation. It creates a daily 20 to 30 percent chance of rain in the area.

Turning the Shara into a garden spot does not sound like a bad outcome to me. Those trying to hold back these forces of nature need to take a second look at the positive outcomes of a warmer climate, assuming there is one. Hat tip to Gateway Pundit who is back in business after the death of his Mom. Condolences from the PrairePundit.

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