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The Sahara (/ s ə ˈ h ɑːr ə /, / s ə ˈ h ær ə /) is a desert spanning across North Africa.With an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.
During periods of a wet or Green Sahara, the Sahara and Arabia become a savanna grassland and African flora and fauna become common. [5] [unreliable source?] Following inter-pluvial arid periods, the Sahara area then reverts to desert conditions, usually as a result of the retreat of the West African Monsoon southwards.
In the southern Sahara, the drying trend was initially counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. By around 4200 BCE, however, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, [6] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara. [7] The Sahara is presently as dry as it was about 13,000 ...
(CNN) — Striking images from the Sahara Desert show large lakes etched into rolling sand dunes after one of the most arid, barren places in the world was hit with its first floods in decades ...
Climate scientists used models to show historic intervals of a green, vegetated Sahara Desert that occur every 21,000 years. The Sahara Desert—Yes, That One—Remarkably Grows Green Every 21,000 ...
The modern, arid Sahara. The Sahara was not a desert during the African humid period. Instead, most of northern Africa was covered by grass, trees, and lakes. The African humid period (AHP; also known by other names) was a climate period in Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene geologic epochs, when northern Africa was wetter than today.
The Sahara Desert features a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh).The Sahara Desert is one of the driest and hottest regions of the world, with a mean temperature sometimes over 30 °C (86 °F) and the average high temperatures in summer are over 40 °C (104 °F) for months at a time, and can even soar to 47 °C (117 °F).
Satellite images released by NASA show pockets of plant life popping up all over the Sahara Desert after an extratropical cyclone drenched a large swath of northwestern Africa on Sept. 7 and Sept. 8.