Saturday, March 11, 2006

The Sahara Desert & Global Warming

Okay, so I know everyone is probably sick of talking about global warming, but I found one really good site. It all revolves around Africa's Sahara Desert, which covers over 3.5 million square miles and has only 2.5 million inhabitants - roughly 1 person per square mile (0.4 sq km)- which is one of the lowest population densities on earth.
However, greenhouse gas emissions have caused heavy, torrential rains lately. Global warming could have the potential to alter North Africa's environment. It could result in extreme rainfall; something that the desert isn't accustomed to. Not only that, but "Temperatures are estimated to rise more than the world average all over Africa. Rains will therefore dry up faster as evaporation follows temperatures." This could result in harsh challenges with agriculture production. With increasing poverty and malnourishment, I can only imagine the devastation that struggling agriculture could cause.
The Sahara is also home to the gerbil, jerboa, Cape hare, the desert hedgehog, gazelle, dama deer,anubis baboon, spotted hyena, common jackal, and over 300 bird species. The possible effects on these animals are unknown. Global warming in The Sahara is just gaining recognition, so research is gradually taking off. I hope scientists can discover more information on what the future of Africa and its deserts include.
*Check out this site for interesting basics on the Sahara, including: the land, people, animals, etc.
THE DESERT
or
*This site on global warming

AFRICAN SAHARA

posted by Anonymous @ 3/11/2006 06:00:00 PM

1 Comments:

At Sunday, March 12, 2006 9:58:00 PM, Blogger Kevin Hurd said...

I have actually not heard about this issue before, but I think it has somewhat of a domino effect going with global warming. Many people believe or don't belive in global warming, but here we have a prime example of the effects of global warming. Many people just pass global warming off as bologna or something that doesn't matter, but when you read an article like this and see this domino effect through analyzing the issue, you can truly see one of the problems behind global warming.

 

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