The Green Sahara Period
The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world. The first noteworthy point here is that deserts need not be hot. The Sahara, while being the largest hot desert, is only the third largest desert in the world. The first two are in Antarctica and the Arctic. The defining characteristic of deserts is their aridity, or perhaps more appropriately, their hyper aridity. Deserts receive very little precipitation, whether it be in the form of rainfall or snowfall. The second noteworthy point is the size of the Sahara. At 9.2 million km 2 , it is almost three times the size of India (3.3 million km 2 ). So before reading further, it is important to keep in mind that we are going to talk about climate change in a huge region and of a huge scale. Source: https://mapfight.xyz/compare/in-vs-sahara/ Around 11,000 years ago, something strange happened. The Sahara Desert started receiving more rainfall than before. Among other things, precipitation dictates what vegetation can be supported in a reg...