Satellite images reveal Sahara desert turning green
Satellite images of the Sahara show a visible increase in vegetation compared to 2023, this has been caused by the increased precipitation over the region linked to the recent northward shift of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
The increased rain over the Sahara desert has led to the growth of visible vegetation in certain areas. Satellite images of Tanout, Niger acquired on September 8, 2024, show a visible increase in green patches compared to images from September 14, 2023.
The unusual rains are linked to the northward shift of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which is bringing in above-average rainfall with some regions expecting to see 500% of typical monthly rainfall.
The ECMWF extended precipitation anomaly for early September also showed a large portion of the Sahara Desert under significant rainfall anomalies, forecasting 2024 to be the wettest year for the Sahara Desert since 1994.
The ITCZ shift, along with the record-positive North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), has altered weather patterns across the Atlantic and Africa. This shift has led to increased rainfall in regions such as the Sahel and the Sahara Desert.
“While some degree of rainfall in this region happens every summer, what’s unique this year is the involvement of an extratropical cyclone,” said Moshe Armon, a senior lecturer at the Institute of Earth Sciences and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem said this region receives some degree of rainfall every summer but ‘what’s unique this year is the involvement of an extratropical cyclone’. The system formed over the Atlantic Ocean and extended far southward, pulling moisture from equatorial Africa into the northern Sahara.
“What’s also fascinating is that normally dry lakes in the Sahara are filling due to this event,” Armon added.
The following images, courtesy of NASA’s Terra satellite and its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), show several of these lakes, image as dark blue areas, including one in Morocco’s Iriqui National Park (shown in detail within the inset circle):
The researchers identified more than 38 000 heavy precipitation events over the Sahara and found that roughly 30 percent of those, like this event, occurred during the summer. Interestingly, only a few of them were associated with an extratropical cyclone.
The greening of the Sahara has been accompanied by significant environmental damage and numerous fatalities.
References:
1 Heavy rains soak Sahara Desert as northward ITCZ shift alters African weather patterns – The Watchers – September 6, 2024
2 A Deluge for the Sahara – Earth Observatory – Accessed September 18, 2024
I am an Assistant Editor and Severe Weather & Science Journalist at The Watchers, specializing in real-time severe weather coverage, geophysical event reporting, and research-driven scientific analysis. You can reach me at rishav(at)watchers(.)news.
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