The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert, but parts of it could be made green if massive solar and wind farms set up shop there, a new study finds.
The next Northern Hemisphere summer insolation maximum — when the Green Sahara could reappear — is projected to happen again about 10,000 years from now in A.D. 12000 or A.D. 13000. But what scientists can't predict is how greenhouse gases will affect this natural climate cycle.
Desert greening is the process of man-made reclamation of deserts for ecological reasons (biodiversity), farming and forestry, but also for reclamation of natural water systems and other ecological systems that support life.
Yes, it will be possible in near future. Real terraforming means change of the millions of square kilometres.
No. Terraforming is a fantasy. There's no way to give a planet a magnetic field to protect it from radiation, or enough mass to keep an atmosphere.
While Venus, Earth, Mars, and even the Moon have been studied in relation to the subject, Mars is usually considered to be the most likely candidate for terraforming.
“If [deserts] were suitable for trees they would probably have trees in them,” Hanan said. Trees need sun, CO2 and water to survive. Deserts drastically lack one of those ingredients, preventing most trees from growing naturally.
Restoring some natural vegetation and planting drought resistant shrubs is another way to reverse some of the effects of desertification. The Great Green Initiative in the Sahel and Sahara aims to restore 100 million hectares of degraded land.
The harsh environment of deserts affects solar panel efficiency. The dust and sand that gets accumulate on solar panels tamper with its functionality. Besides being very hot, the fluctuating temperatures during day and night puts rapid thermal cycles on any solar panel materials.
Stager's research suggests that as the Sahara turns green, it could trigger a warming trend out to sea in the Atlantic Ocean that would make our weather here in the eastern US far more volatile. "When you green the Sahara, there's less dust, the air clears, the tropical sun beats down on the ocean right on this spot.
Researchers have calculated that if the Saharan desert is covered with solar panels, it will generate four times the world's demand for electricity. Imagine how life would be easier! The unit price of energy will be reduced considerably.
The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert, but parts of it could be made green if massive solar and wind farms set up shop there, a new study finds.
New research investigating the transition of the Sahara from a lush, green landscape 10,000 years ago to the arid conditions found today, suggests that humans may have played an active role in its desertification.
Beneath the sands of the Sahara Desert scientists have discovered evidence of a prehistoric megalake. Formed some 250,000 years ago when the Nile River pushed through a low channel near Wadi Tushka, it flooded the eastern Sahara, creating a lake that at its highest level covered more than 42,000 square miles.
But 11,000 years ago, what we know today as the world's largest hot desert would've been unrecognizable. The now-dessicated northern strip of Africa was once green and alive, pocked with lakes, rivers, grasslands and even forests.
The dry, inhospitable Arabian desert had been turned into a lush fruit farm with the simple addition of clay and water. Except it wasn't so simple – these melons were only possible with the help of liquid “nanoclay”, a soil recovery technology whose story began 1,500 miles (2,400km) west and two decades ago.
For several hundred thousand years, the Sahara has alternated between desert and savanna grassland in a 20,000-year cycle caused by the precession of Earth's axis as it rotates around the Sun, which changes the location of the North African monsoon.
It is also predicted that Earth will become a desert planet within a billion years due to the Sun's increasing luminosity. A study conducted in 2013 concluded that hot desert planets without runaway greenhouse effect can exist in 0.5 AU around Sun-like stars.
China and Africa are building 'great walls' of trees to hold back the desert. But will it work? It borrows its name from the massive stone structure built by the Qin Dynasty. But the purpose of the Green Great Wall is not to hold back the barbarians — it's to stop the ever-encroaching deserts.
Land erosion and overfarming have halted planting in many areas of the project. China's increasing levels of pollution have also weakened the soil, causing it to be unusable in many areas.
The main problem with Venus today, from a terraformation standpoint, is the very thick carbon dioxide atmosphere. The ground level pressure of Venus is 9.2 MPa (91 atm; 1,330 psi).
We can't terraform the moon. The Moon is too small, has no magnetic field, not nearly enough water, nitrogen, etc.
The planet's lack of a protective magnetic field means the solar wind will continue stripping its atmosphere and water, reverting our changes to Mars or constantly degrading them. To truly terraform Mars, we would need to fix its magnetic field—or lack thereof.