The third largest desert in the world is the Sahara, which is the largest hot desert in the world. The area of the Sahara is about the size of the United States and spans nearly a third of the African continent. The name of the desert is derived from the Arabic word for desert.
The Red Sea to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the north, and the Sahel savanna to the south are all within the confines of the Sahara. The desert spans 10 countries, including Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Libya, Malian, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, and Tunisia, as well as the territory of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that was annexed by Morocco in 1975.
The sand dune fields of the Sahara desert are often depicted in movies. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the dunes cover 25% of the entire desert. There are mountains, plateaus, sand- and gravel-covered plains, salt flats, basins and depressions. The Qattara Depression in northwestern Egypt is the deepest point in the Sahara, at 436 feet.
Although water is hard to come by in the entire region, the Sahara has at least 20 lakes and huge aquifers, which are the primary sources of water for more than 90 oases in the desert. Water management authorities used to think that the aquifers in the Sahara were fossils and that they would soon run out of water. A study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters found that the aquifers were still being fed.
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Many plant and animal species call the region home despite the harsh conditions. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are 500 plant species, 70 mammal species, 90 bird species, 100 reptile species, and many small arthropods in the Sahara.
The camel is one of the most well-known animals in the Sahara. A study published in the Research Journal of Agriculture and Environmental Management shows that the ancestors of modern camels first appeared 45 million years ago, and they traveled across the Bering isthmus between 3 million and 5 million years ago. According to the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, camels were domesticated 3000 years ago on the southeast Arabian Peninsula to be used for transportation in the desert.
The San Diego Zoo says that camels are well adapted to the hot, arid environment of the Sahara. The humps on a camel's back store fat, which can be used for energy and hydration. Camels can go more than a week without water and several months without food.
There are mammals in the Sahara such as gazelles, addaxes, cheetahs, caracals, desert foxes and wild dogs. There are many reptile species that thrive in the desert environment, including snakes, lizards and crocodiles. Several arthropod species call the Sahara home, such as dung beetles, scarab beetles, deathstalker, scorpions and many types of ants.
The plant species in the Sahara have adapted to the arid conditions, with roots that reach deep underground to find buried water sources and leaves that are shaped into spines to minimize the amount of water lost. Olive trees, date palms, shrubs and grasses are abundant in the Nile Valley and other areas of the desert that are completely devoid of plant life.
The desert climate of the Sahara is dry and inhospitable. A study published in the journal Science Advances states that it alternates between a harsh desert and a lush, green oasis every 20,000 years. Dust deposits from the Sahara were examined by the study's authors. The cycle between a dry and a green Sahara is related to the slight changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis. The monsoon rains increased when the Northern Hemisphere was tilted just a single degree closer to the sun.
Archaeologists have discovered prehistoric cave and rock paintings and other archaeological remains that shed light on what life was like in the once-green Sahara. The pottery shows that herders raised livestock and harvests in the 7,000 years ago.
The climate of the Sahara has been dry for the past 2,000 years. The northeastern winds drive hot winds toward the equator. These winds can cause severe dust storms that can cause visibility to plummet. Dust from the Sahara travels all the way to the other side of the globe.
In the journal American Meteorological Society, researchers reported that precipitation in the Sahara varies from zero to about 3 inches of rain per year. There is snow at higher altitudes. The average temperature in the desert is about 20 to 25 degrees Celsius higher in the summer than in the winter, with daytime temperatures soaring as high as 120 F (49 C) and nighttime temperatures dropping to minus 18 C.
According to a study published in the Journal of Climate, the area of the Sahara desert has grown 10% since 1920, and will likely continue to grow until the year 2050. Climate change and natural climate cycles are causing the Sahara desert to grow and shrink over time, despite the fact that all deserts increase in area during the dry season and decrease during the wet season. The authors of the study estimated that a third of the expansion of the desert was due to climate change.
Large-scale wind and solar farms could be installed in the Sahara to mitigate the effects of climate change. The farms would provide clean energy and reduce the amount of greenhouse gases entering the atmosphere, according to a study published in the journal Science. Simulations show that precipitation over wind farms would double on average, increasing vegetation by 20%. Similar results were produced by the solar farm simulations.
The Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History has a study about the Sahara that was published in 2019. In a case study from the U.S. Geological Survey, you can learn more about one of the desert's most striking landscape features. To learn about the extreme adaptations that enable animals to survive the desert's harsh conditions, visit the Sahara with Sir David Attenborough.
J., et al., "Quantifying the Modern Recharge of the Sahara Aquifers." In 40, no.11, pp. 2673, you can find it at: http://www.grl.50478.
WWF, World Wildlife Fund, is at www.worldwildlife.org.
The introduction to Camel Origin, History, Raising... The introduction to camel's origin history raising characteristics and wool hair and skin review is in the PDF.
The origin of dromedary domestication was discovered.
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Animals and Plants has a camel.
The Wildlife Conservancy Network (WCN) is a part of the Saharaconservation.org.
Skonieczny et al. studied the variability of sahara dust over the past 240,000 years. The 5th, no.1, was published in 2019.
Climate change over Africa in the 20th century.
The expansion of the desert and the shrinking of the frozen land of the north were studied. There is an article in theSci Rep 10, 4109.
The Climate Model shows large-scale wind and solar farms in the Sahara. In: 361, no. 6406, 2018, pp. 1019
O&leary et al. studied the upper and lower Paleogene Sediments from the Trans-Saharan Seaway.
West Africa: Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics is a case study.
Africa, Sahara is a programme on the BBC One.
Live Science Senior Writer Mindy Weisberger updated the article.
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