Author: Brandon A. Weber / Source: Big Think
The Sahara desert is the largest region of its kind in the world, second only to Antarctica and the Arctic, and it’s the biggest “hot desert” of any on our planet. Next to that, on its southern border, is the Sahel, a “transition” region that is not nearly as dry or barren.
Together, these regions are spread throughout 10 countries, including North Africa, Egypt, and Sudan, which means that the total area is roughly the size of China or the United States. Despite its size, the central Sahara itself receives about an inch of water per year in precipitation. Think about that.
It hasn’t always been this way; every 41,000 years or so, because of the tilt of the Earth’s axis (and therefore, the North African monsoon season), it becomes a lush savannah, teeming with life and water.
A team of scientists has concluded that deploying solar and wind farms across the region will produce significantly more rain (and therefore, more natural vegetation) in the areas that they would exist. Because of what the study referred to as the “albedo—precipitation—vegetation feedback” (albedo is basically the reflection of light and electromagnetic…
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