I heard on radio4 this afternoon that the greening of the Sahel, the area south of the Sahara Desert in Mali and Chad was not a boon but a source of conflict.
Uh?
It seems the desert nomads don't like the resulting pressure on the previous dominance of their desert lifestyle.
I would have thought the greening of the Sahel represented an improvement of the regional climate. But no. It is just another example of the unmitigated evil of global warming causing inter-tribal conflict.
I say, LIVE WITH IT! Times change. Be flexible!
.....
For years, many scientists have been making dire predictions of widespread irreversible ‘desertification’ in the African Sahel. But recent findings have proven them wrong.
Satellite images consistently show an increase in ‘greenness’ since the 1980s over large areas, confirming evidence on the ground indicating that the Sahel has recovered from the great droughts of the 1980s, and that human factors have played a large role in reclaiming the desert [1].
The African Sahel is a semi-arid grass and shrubland region situated between the Sahara desert in the north and the humid tropical savannas in the south, with a steep north-south gradient in mean annual rainfall. Rainfall is markedly seasonal and variable. A long dry season alternates with a short humid season during the northern hemisphere summer. The scarcity of rainfall and its variable, unpredictable pattern accentuating from south to north, are the most important factors that shape the Sahel ecosystem. The vegetation cycle closely corresponds to the seasonality in rainfall, with virtually all the plant growth in the humid summer months. Overlying the sharp seasonal contrasts in rainfall are considerable fluctuations from year to year, and from one decade to another.
More here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/greeningTheDesert.php
Satellite images consistently show an increase in ‘greenness’ since the 1980s over large areas, confirming evidence on the ground indicating that the Sahel has recovered from the great droughts of the 1980s, and that human factors have played a large role in reclaiming the desert [1].
The African Sahel is a semi-arid grass and shrubland region situated between the Sahara desert in the north and the humid tropical savannas in the south, with a steep north-south gradient in mean annual rainfall. Rainfall is markedly seasonal and variable. A long dry season alternates with a short humid season during the northern hemisphere summer. The scarcity of rainfall and its variable, unpredictable pattern accentuating from south to north, are the most important factors that shape the Sahel ecosystem. The vegetation cycle closely corresponds to the seasonality in rainfall, with virtually all the plant growth in the humid summer months. Overlying the sharp seasonal contrasts in rainfall are considerable fluctuations from year to year, and from one decade to another.
More here
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/greeningTheDesert.php
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