Source https://brilliantmaps.com/sahara-desert-today-vs-8000-years-ago/

Yay, overgrazing.

There was once an inland sea called Mega-Chad? Is this one step to discovering the legendary Giga-Chad?

From the article: "Around 5,000 years ago, orbital changes began to weaken the monsoons, reducing rainfall and initiating desertification."

With global warming can't we compensate for the diminished radiation? What's the probability for Sahara to go green again during the next century?

Lake Chad has shrunk so much in 50 years...

There is/was an effort to create a Great Green Wall on the southern side of the Sahara to re-green a 15km-wide band of land all across the continent. It's run into funding, civil unrest and political leadership challenges

When you just look at the modern map it's absurd to think about the number of people that live in Africa north of Sahara. It looks like a wasteland that stretches all the way to the coast.

Also, with this timeline, it seems plausible that the earliest Egyptian empires may have been around just early enough to actually experience this desertification. No doubt countless tribal peoples had (or have) oral histories describing how their homeland was eaten away by desert.

How did entire species evolve to live in the desert in just 8000 years?

Desert already existed but wasn't as widespread.

Evolution happens in bursts when species are under pressure and a lot of animals are able to make quick adaptations within a few generations. Some animals don't even need to change because of prior adaptations they never lost and they just thrive.

For example, if a species had previously adapted to arid conditions but was living in a more hospitable region they don't tend to lose their ability to handle arid conditions without some kind of pressure. Access to water doesn't mean they will lose those traits, they just don't need all the water that is available. If the area turns arid they are not impacted by the lack of water like those that don't have those traits. Or they might not currently express their genes in a way that causes that adaptation to arid conditions to show up normally, but they don't necessarily need significant genetic changes to express those traits.

Look at dogs, who can have massive variation from breeding within a few generations.

Also, with this timeline, it seems plausible that the earliest Egyptian empires may have been around just early enough to actually experience this desertification.

AfaIk, one theory is that the ancient Egyptians moved from deserting regions in the Sahara (following a now dry branch of the Nile) to Egypt, i.e. the origin of the ancient Egyptian culture is in the Sahara region.

Imagine if human civilisation got to modern day's level back then. I wonder what the climate change deniers would say about the desertification...

I adore maps like these.

Its a desert now because of global warming /s

Green Sahara/Desert Sahara is a cycle that happens.

I've heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that's not provable.

I also heard it has an effect on animal evolution - the desert acts as a wall, seperating north and south, then goes green and the two regions' life mingle and compete for a while until it desertification seperates them to evolve independantly of each other until the next green phase.

Lesson learned: it technically somewhat works.

The best time to plant trees is now. The best time is always now.

Brilliant. You had this one locked in for a while waiting for the perfect moment. Great shot.

Isn't this the place where mass agriculture was first implemented? What are the odds

Isn’t that supposed to be Iran/Iraq?

weird side note that I've seen the comparison many times and the more I look at it the more the shape of the lake in its largest form and the shape of the lake up to the 70s look very similar, but perfectly mirrored

Is that Radiant Historia?

Yep! It's from the opening.

Honest question is the Mediterranean supposed to empty 8000 years ago and just be land?!

Uh... it looks pretty sea-like on both maps.

That's how we get mutants.

edit: Link.

Not 8000 years ago, but both in the past and in the future it is.

That was the messinian salinity crysis 5 million years ago.

Lake Chad used to be Lake Giga Chad. It's currently a fraction of its former size.

I've heard it was goat domestication and that it caused an environmental crisis.

That's pretty cool. I've heard the idea that the Garden of Eden is where the Persian Gulf is now. It supposedly had incredibly rich soil and an immense supply of fresh water until the glaciers over Europe melted and eventually flooded the area.

Well, Carthage was the bread basket for the Roman Empire.

i heard that the amazon rainforest was a desert when the sahara was green too

It Remembers What It Once Was

The lake's coming home?

Too soon?

https://youtu.be/vG1H9Sg4lBM

They are trying to combat desertification. They're fighting against a strong feedback loop of dry soil causing water to not be retained, but by using crescent burrows, they're able to soak water into the soil properly

Arakkis moment

There's an ancient lakebed in Chad that supplies dust that blows across the Atlantic and delivers phosphorus to Amazon rainforests - phosphorus that is needed to support plant growth. Those long-dead organisms are still in the food chain. Life uuh finds a way.

Something about the wobble of the earth's axis shifting every once in a while. Also the poles can switch too and our sun does it way more often.

Virgins seething

This is the kind of stuff the "don't tell me what to do with my land" crowd doesn't know or care about. Everything affects everything on this planet.

How China Turned a Desert Green

Reversing Desertification A Green Blueprint for Kenya

Of course, a bunch of these efforts to forestall desertification and reverse the damage is being done with money loaned by Chinese state and private businesses. And (unlike when the IMF or western banks extend loans) we all know that this is how Evil Countries get their hooks in to do the Horrible Thing.

So I'm obligated to ask the question:

AT. WHAT. COST?!

I’ve heard people try to claim the garden of eden is a memory of the green sahara, but that’s not provable.

Early civilizations were routinely centered around lush green river valleys, with political strife forcing dissidents out into the dry and sterile periphery. So, I wouldn't say it's a memory of a green Sahara so much as a cycle of cultivation and degradation that has informed human storytelling for millennia.

"Eden" could just as easily be the Indus Valley in modern-day Pakistan. Or the Fertile Crescent of Iraq/Iran. Or the Göbekli Tepe of southeast Turkiye. Or the Nile Delta. Or the modern-day Gaza Strip. Or the rich soils along the slopes of Mount Kenya. Or the bountiful soil of Ukraine. Or yadda yadda yadda.

Maybe all of these places, with migrating peoples constantly looking for the next Promised Land of Fruit and Honey, settling for a time, and being uprooted again.

Including the fact that it will be green again

How was the Amazon? From my understanding it gets a substantial amount of benefit from the sands of the Sahara currently.

Egypt was, but also the Sahara was very dry by the founding of Rome. It's looking like 1600 BCE for early settlements in the area that the city of Rome is now in, meanwhile the latest I'm seeing for desertification is 2100 BCE.

This difference in time is akin to claiming that Henry VIII had an air force. The Roman Empire is early ADs, so it's closer to claiming Julius Caesar had nukes

Carthage was in coastal north Africa and is still pretty green. There are expensive suburbs on it these days.

That's a very, very short time for such a major change. Makes me wonder what currently green ecosystems we take for granted a bit too easily.

But it also makes me wonder whether a reversal is within human reach. To start with, cheap solar potentially enables desalinization and irrigation at unprecedented scales... What a nice thing to feel optimistic about, if nothing else.

Wait what?

Did you confuse rivers (Amazon vs Nile) or do the sands of Sahara literally affect ecosystems on another continent?

The second one. The sands of the Sahara are vital to the Amazon rainforest. They blow all the way to the Amazon and deposit phosphorus which would totally get washed away without that deposit. The surface of the earth is hyper connected. You only experience yourself as a separate being from the rest of nature just because of the limited awareness we have, not because we are actually independent.