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Is there a possibility that the Sahara desert was once a rain forest?
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What is the average precipitation in the Sahara desert?
vary little, about once a year rain comes -scientist
What adaptations does a Sahara Desert bear have?
There is no such animal as a Sahara bear. In fact, the only bear that once lived in Africa, the Atlas bear, is thought to be extinct.
The Sahara desert was once fertile land why is it a desert today?
Climate change (mainly) and progressive "desertification" through poor farming practices and over grazing
What was Western Sahara once known as?
The Western Sahara was once known as the Spanish Sahara.
Is a desert the hottest biome on Earth?
The desert is, at once, the hottest and coldest biome on earth. Antarctica can plunge to more than 100 F. degrees below zero and parts of the Sahara and Mojave can exceed 130 degrees F. above zero.
Was the Sahara once fertile?
Every one know that the Sahara desert is the world's largest hot desert - a vast ocean of sand where the heat is so terriable that men and animals die of thirst. But it was once beautiful, green and fertile place. Scientist belive that around 10,000 B.C., the Earth's orbit wobbled slightly, causing a shift in weather patterns. The monsoons which drench Southern Africa to day shift up, pouring water into the Sahara, where it forrmed bodies of water. plant life flourished and plants were followed by animals and humans, who established lively civilizations. When weather pattern shifted again, the Sahara turned to being a desert once more.
Was the Sahara desert once a sea?
It looked a lot different 10 000 years ago,during the ice age.There were lakes and streams and enough rain fell to support forests and grasslands.Herds of giraffes and elephants roamed.It was rich and fertile land.Then,about 4 000 years ago, the climate changed.The weather became drier and slowly the land turned into the Sahara Desert.
How is the Sahara Desert formed?
There is some dispute about how the Sahara Desert could have been formed.The first view is that a sudden climate change caused the once-fertile region of the Sahara to turn to desert. Computer simulations have indicated that, over a period of just several hundred years following an abrupt climate shift some 4000 years ago, the grasslands of the Sahara gave way to the desert, while summers became longer and hotter. This belief was backed up by the presence (and age) of marine sediments in the region.The second view retains the concept that climate change caused the difference, but that it occurred much more slowly, over thousands of years rather than just hundreds. Global warming is aactually causing a renewal of green growth in some areas.Either way, climate change appears to have been the cause.
Is there water availability in the Sahara Desert?
The rain in the Sahara is less than 10 inches a year. People cannot survive without water. There are few lakes. Most of these anyway are saltwater lakes. People cannot drink from them. Lake Chad is the only freshwater lake in the desert. Rivers once ran through the Sahara. We know this because dried up riverbeds, called wadis, still exist. When it does rain in the desert, these wadis fill up with water and become active rivers for a short time.
How can a leaf fossil be found in a dry and bare desert?
Because it wasn't always a desert. It could have been a swamp or forest at some point in the past. As the continents drift north or south, or mountain ranges rise and fall the weather will also change. Kind of like when the Sahara desert was a savana grass lands and that was just within the last 5 to 10 thousand years. I live in the middle of a continent and my whole area has coral fossils because it was once an ocean floor.
Why are trees evidence that there was once water in a Sahara?
Because plants won't grow without water - if plants once grew in the Sahara then there must have been water there.
What type of a desert is the Sahara?
The Sahara Desert is a hot, dry area covering most of North Africa.Because there is practically no rainfall, few plants can grow there and those that do are specialized for arid conditions. In some parts there are no plants at all. Occasional wet areas fed by underground springs support oases, where plants grow well and people can live all year long.In 1922 a temperature of 136° F (57.8°C) was recorded, making the Sahara the hottest desert in the world.It is also the biggest hot desert in the world. However, it is the second biggest desert, as Antarctica is the biggest desert (but a cold desert).Some parts of the Sahara are sandy with giant dunes, while other areas are gravel plains, rock plateaus and mountains (only 3/8th of the Sahara Desert is sand).it is an expanse of sand where almost nothing lives only a few organisms are capable of surviving there .Some of the sand dunes can reach 180 metres (590 ft in in heightThe climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variation between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years.[11] During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is today, extending south beyond its current boundaries.[12] The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara, from about 8000 BC to 6000 BC, perhaps because of low pressure areas over the collapsing ice sheets to the north.[13]Once the ice sheets were gone, northern Sahara dried out. In the southern Sahara though, the drying trend was soon counteracted by the monsoon, which brought rain further north than it does today. The monsoon season is caused by heating of air over the land during summer. The hot air rises and pulls in cool, wet air from the ocean, which causes rain. Thus, though it seems counterintuitive, the Sahara was wetter when it received more insulation in the summer. This was caused by a stronger tilt in Earth's axis of orbit than today, and perihelion occurred at the end of July around 7000 BC.[14]By around 3400 BC, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today,[15] leading to the gradual desertification of the Sahara.[16] The Sahara is now as dry as it was about 13,000 years ago.[11] These conditions are responsible for what has been called the Sahara pump theory.The Sahara has one of the harshest climates in the world. The prevailing north-easterly wind often causes sand storms and dust devils.[17] When this wind reaches the Mediterranean, it is known as sirocco and often reaches hurricane speeds in North Africa and southern Europe. Half of the Sahara receives less than 20 mm (0.79 in) of rain per year, and the rest receives up to 100 mm (3.9 in) per year.[18] The rainfall happens very rarely, but when it does it is usually torrential when it occurs after long dry periods.The southern boundary of the Sahara, as measured by rainfall, was observed to both advance and retreat between 1980 and 1990. As a result of drought in the Sahel, the southern boundary moved south 130 kilometres (81 mi) overall during that period.[19]Recent signals indicate that the Sahara and surrounding regions are greening because of increased rainfall. Satellite imaging shows extensive re greening of the Sahel between 1982 and 2002, and in both Eastern and Western Sahara a more than 20 year long trend of increased grazing areas and flourishing trees and shrubs has been observed
