- 2 days ago
The Sahara is doing something wild right now as new satellite data shows some regions suddenly greening while other areas are expanding faster than scientists expected.
Climate researchers are linking these surprising changes to shifts in the West African Monsoon and rising ocean temperatures that are reshaping the desert’s boundaries.
Sahara dust is playing an even bigger global role than people realize, fertilizing the Amazon and affecting hurricane formation across the Atlantic. But the not-so-good news is that intense desertification is threatening farmland, ecosystems, and communities across the Sahel as weather patterns grow more unpredictable. And in this video, you’ll find out why the Sahara’s strange new behavior is becoming a major warning sign for future global climate stability. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
Climate researchers are linking these surprising changes to shifts in the West African Monsoon and rising ocean temperatures that are reshaping the desert’s boundaries.
Sahara dust is playing an even bigger global role than people realize, fertilizing the Amazon and affecting hurricane formation across the Atlantic. But the not-so-good news is that intense desertification is threatening farmland, ecosystems, and communities across the Sahel as weather patterns grow more unpredictable. And in this video, you’ll find out why the Sahara’s strange new behavior is becoming a major warning sign for future global climate stability. Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00Now, if you were to check out the Sahara from space right now, instead of a barren wasteland, you'd spot a surprising sight.
00:08Dry land sprinkled with some lakes and rivers in Morocco and Algeria, all thanks to some heavy rains in early September 2024.
00:17These aren't oases. This is just the Sahara going back to the factory settings.
00:22Believe it or not, eons ago, one of the biggest deserts on Earth was actually a lush paradise full of greenery.
00:30Let's first see how the Sahara turned into a desert.
00:33During the last ice age, Earth was much colder, and big ice sheets covered a lot of the land.
00:39At that time, the Sahara desert was significantly bigger than it is today, and on our planet, there were fewer tropical forests.
00:46And the cooler temperatures changed how rain was distributed in the tropics.
00:51Normally, warm air rises in the tropics, which helps create rain.
00:55Since it was colder during the ice age, this system got, well, messed up.
01:00And less rain fell in some areas.
01:02This caused more dry and desert-like conditions in places that are usually wetter.
01:07There was also a lot of dust blowing around in the Sahara desert, which scientists found in old ocean sediments.
01:15But about 12,500 years ago, something surprising happened.
01:20The dust levels went way down.
01:22This meant that the Sahara got a lot wetter, which is a sign that the climate suddenly warmed up for a while before cooling down again.
01:30After 12,500 years ago, the Sahara became a much greener place, like a savannah, because a weather pattern called the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a mouthful indeed, moved north during summer.
01:43This wet period was at its best around 4,000 years ago, when temperatures were a bit warmer than today.
01:49At that time, more rain fell in the Ethiopian highlands, which made the Nile River carry more sediment.
01:56However, there was another big change called a Heinrich event, which caused the Intertropical Convergence Zone to move back south.
02:04This led to the Sahara and Arabian regions drying out quickly.
02:09Because of this, the Nile River had much less flooding between 2700 and 2100 BCE.
02:15Long story short, well, too late for that, the Sahara has gone through wet and dry cycles due to changes in the climate and weather patterns over thousands of years.
02:26Up until recently, we've known about the Sahara in its dry era.
02:30But in September 2024, an unusual cyclone rolled through.
02:35It hit Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and filled those dry lakes and rivers.
02:40The satellite images from NASA of before and after the rains are stunning.
02:46It's like the Sahara has had a makeover.
02:49Some areas in North Africa received up to 8 inches of rain.
02:54For comparison, Seattle gets about 40 inches per year, only 5 times what the Sahara received.
03:00I say only for one simple reason.
03:03Seattle has a reputation for being quite rainy, while the Sahara does not.
03:07The tricky part is those 8 inches.
03:11Essentially, the entire yearly quota for this area fell in a matter of moments.
03:15So, in a way, it might have felt rainier in the Sahara than in Seattle.
03:20The mountains funneled the water into ephemeral lakes in northern Algeria,
03:25which recently expanded to over 70 square miles and reached depths of more than 7 feet.
03:31That's enough water to sustain it for a year.
03:33So, what exactly are these ephemeral lakes?
03:36Well, they're basins that fill up for a short time each year,
03:40but might stay dry for several years if the rain doesn't cooperate.
03:44Sometimes, water flows into them from a small surrounding area.
03:48Or it can just be good old-fashioned rain.
03:52Now, a big question arises.
03:53How come these lakes exist in the first place?
03:56Well, generally, they form because there's excess water trapped on the surface.
04:00But the soil in the Sahara is incredibly dry.
04:04Shouldn't it act like a sponge?
04:05It must be thirsting for moisture.
04:08Well, think about how eagerly your potted plant drinks up water when you return home from a vacation.
04:13However, no matter how parched it is,
04:16dry soil can only absorb a limited amount of water, which is often quite small.
04:21And just like your potted plant, it doesn't necessarily drink at all.
04:25You might simply be over-watering.
04:27Or, if you check the saucer below, you could find a mini-flood.
04:32Another significant factor preventing the soil from absorbing water is the lack of vegetation.
04:38Under normal conditions, trees, shrubs, and various plants help retain moisture.
04:43In the desert, however, it's nearly impossible.
04:46There may be a few palm trees, but that's about it.
04:49This also explains the formation of those temporary lakes.
04:53Precipitation that isn't held by plants accumulates in low-lying valleys and depressions,
04:59creating these fleeting bodies of water.
05:03These lakes may only last for a limited time.
05:06But that doesn't mean they shouldn't have names.
05:09For instance, the beautiful lake adorned with swaying palms that you see
05:13is called Lake Yasmina, located in the oasis town of Mirtsoga.
05:17In certain areas of the desert, where the dunes rise,
05:21it may appear as though you're looking at a mirage.
05:24But it's not.
05:26The sand dunes are partially covered by water.
05:29Remember how I mentioned 8 inches?
05:31Well, that's not entirely accurate for some regions.
05:34In fact, there are places where the flooding is so extensive
05:37that the palms are submerged up to their crowns.
05:40Now, the last time we saw a downpour this intensive was 30 to 50 years ago.
05:46But this rain is more than welcome.
05:48After 6 consecutive years of drought, Morocco really needed it.
05:53Lakes that had been dry for decades, like Lake Ariki,
05:56are finally getting some much-needed water.
05:58A recent analysis revealed that out of the hundreds of storms
06:03that have hit the region since 2000,
06:06only 6 brought enough rain to start filling up this lake.
06:09And of those, only 2 resulted in a lake level higher
06:13than what we saw in September 2024.
06:16So while this torrential rain seems like a blessing,
06:19the big question is, will it last?
06:22The answer is yes.
06:24When humid air from near the equator meets the hot, dry air from the north,
06:29the Sahara Desert tends to get more rain.
06:32Scientists say this collision zone is shifting further north
06:35as the planet warms.
06:36And it warms.
06:38So it's likely to keep moving that way over the next couple of decades.
06:42So I seem a bit overly optimistic about this.
06:45And the truth is, the news isn't entirely positive.
06:49The reality is that no one was truly prepared
06:52for a flood situation like this.
06:54Moreover, remember that this isn't some Southeast Asian country
06:58where people are accustomed to dealing with water.
07:00This is the bone-dry Sahara.
07:03That said, I think you know what I'm getting at.
07:06Tragically, at least 18 people lost their lives
07:09to the intense rains in southern Morocco.
07:12The authorities are gearing up for even more heavy rain in the region.
07:16But if that's the case,
07:18could it mean the Sahara is facing extinction?
07:20And what would that even mean for us?
07:23It might sound a bit strange,
07:25but our planet actually relies on deserts.
07:28And the Sahara is no different.
07:30At first glance, it may seem like a barren wasteland,
07:33and it's nothing to write home about.
07:35But deserts play a crucial role in our ecosystem.
07:39They act as major carbon storage sites
07:41and are considered net carbon sinks,
07:44with the Sahara alone holding an estimated
07:461 trillion metric tons of carbon.
07:49In the fight against climate change,
07:52these existing deserts are like a buffer,
07:54helping to keep the temperatures within acceptable levels.
07:57Yeah, deserts are scorching hot,
08:00but they act as the world's air conditioning.
08:03Plus, desert sands are an unexpected source of nutrients
08:06for lush areas like tropical rainforests.
08:08Believe it or not,
08:10scientists have found that the sand particles from the Sahara
08:13have a hand in nurturing the Amazon rainforest.
08:17These particles travel across the Atlantic Ocean,
08:20riding the winds all the way to South America,
08:22where they enrich the soil in the Amazon basin.
08:26Without the Sahara,
08:27experts believe the Amazon rainforest could face serious collapse.
08:31The floor is lava!
08:38Haha, just kidding.
08:39But honestly, it's kind of falling apart.
08:42You might not feel it yet,
08:43but a huge part of North America
08:45has already lost 37 miles worth of rock from its foundation.
08:50And no, this isn't about earthquakes or giant sinkholes.
08:53It's about the continent losing pieces of the very thing
08:57that keeps the ground from wobbling around like a bad carnival ride.
09:02A team of researchers has just dropped a geological bombshell.
09:06Part of North America's ground is thinning out
09:08like a very sad, very slow ice cream drip.
09:12How do they know?
09:13They basically gave Earth a high-tech full-body MRI
09:16and created 3D maps showing how rocks once considered indestructible
09:21are now melting away into the planet's guts,
09:24like an upside-down cheese pizza inside an oven.
09:28But to really understand this mess,
09:30you first have to meet my old friends,
09:32cratons.
09:33Cratons are like the roots of the continents.
09:36They're thick, tough, and ancient.
09:38We're talking billions of years old.
09:41These bad boys survived meteor impacts,
09:44supervolcanoes,
09:45and even the tectonic movement of plates.
09:48If the plates got into fistfights, for example,
09:51you can bet we would see mountain ranges being born.
09:54If they got a divorce,
09:56drifting apart from each other,
09:57then a whole new ocean would be born.
10:01All of these things leave scars on the surface of Earth,
10:04but the cratons seem to always remain unfazed,
10:08like the cockroaches of geology.
10:10And since a craton can basically get punched in the face
10:13and feel nothing,
10:15scientists always assume these things were nearly indestructible.
10:18But then, a group of researchers
10:21took their fancy machines to the test
10:23and realized that,
10:25wait, the cratons are falling apart?
10:27How?
10:29Enter the Farallon Plate,
10:31a really ancient tectonic plate
10:33that started to slide under North America's major plate
10:36over 100 million years ago.
10:39This is a pretty normal process, actually.
10:42It's called subduction,
10:43and it's how Earth recycles rocks
10:46and keeps itself from overheating.
10:47This subduction thing has been happening for so long
10:51that, by now,
10:52the Farallon is almost 400 miles away from the craton,
10:56sitting pretty chill at the lower mantle,
10:59weirdly close to the outer core of our planet.
11:03But the Farallon has been causing trouble,
11:05like that one roommate who moved out
11:07but keeps leaving weird stuff in the fridge.
11:09You see, as it sinks,
11:11it tugs on the bottom of North America's foundation,
11:14stretching it out and causing pieces to fall off into the deep mantle.
11:18And if that wasn't enough drama,
11:21the sinking Farallon has also leaked water and carbon dioxide
11:24into the surrounding rocks,
11:26making the craton even softer and easier to shred apart.
11:30Thanks, Farallon.
11:32Very cool of you.
11:34By studying hundreds of earthquakes
11:36across thousands of monitoring stations,
11:39scientists have confirmed the story.
11:41Big chunks of continental material are dripping downward,
11:44thinning the craton by as much as 37 miles.
11:48That's more missing rocks than can fit into a milk carton.
11:51Sounds dramatic, right?
11:52But don't worry.
11:54This is happening at a snail's pace.
11:56It'll take millions of years for anything noticeable to happen.
12:00Your great-great-great-great-few grandkids
12:03from the distant future
12:05might still be standing on solid ground.
12:07But don't get too comfy.
12:10This thing may not be an urgent problem,
12:12but there's another type of sinking
12:14that's happening faster than you can say,
12:16Help!
12:17Here's the thing.
12:18By 2050, at least 32 major cities in the U.S.,
12:22including New York, Baltimore, and Charleston,
12:25could be partially underwater.
12:27And guess what?
12:28This one is mostly our fault.
12:32Scientists noticed that, since 2007,
12:34some cities have been sinking into the ground
12:36between 0.04 and 0.08 inches every year.
12:41Charleston in South Carolina
12:43is pulling ahead in the worst way possible,
12:46sinking 0.15 inches annually.
12:49Sure, these numbers sound tiny and a bit ridiculous,
12:52but Charleston is barely 9 feet above sea level,
12:56and a little sinking goes a long way
12:58when the ocean is breathing down your neck.
13:01On really bad flood days,
13:02people there have to abandon their cars
13:04and basically swim home.
13:06This whole phenomenon is called land subsidence,
13:10and when you mix sinking land with rising sea levels,
13:14you get a disaster cocktail of flooded streets,
13:17salty farmland, ghost forests,
13:19and a lot of very cranky homeowners.
13:23And it doesn't stop with just homes.
13:25Infrastructure like bridges, roads, airports,
13:28and power plants,
13:29All things we rely on daily
13:32are also at risk of serious damage.
13:35Flooded electrical grids and sunken highways
13:37could cause billions more in economic losses
13:40and create major safety hazards for communities.
13:44Now, let's be fair.
13:46Not everything is humanity's fault.
13:48Some of this trouble dates all the way back to the Ice Age.
13:52About 12,000 years ago,
13:54massive ice sheets covered the northern U.S.
13:57They were heavy, like seriously heavy.
14:00The weight pushed the land down,
14:02and when the ice melted,
14:03the ground didn't just pop back up like a trampoline.
14:06Instead, it started playing a weird game
14:08of geological seesaw.
14:11The places that were squished started rising,
14:13and the places that weren't got pulled down.
14:17This whole process,
14:18called glacial isostatic adjustment,
14:20try to say that three times fast.
14:23But of course, humans found a way to make it worse.
14:27Groundwater extraction is a major culprit.
14:29Think of it like pulling the stuff out of the mattress.
14:32After a while, the whole thing just sags.
14:35In places like California's Central Valley,
14:38the land is dropping by up to 8 inches a year
14:40because we keep pumping out water during droughts.
14:44In cities like New York,
14:46the problem isn't just water.
14:48Skyscrapers themselves are making it worse.
14:51Yep, turns out if you stack millions of tons of concrete
14:55and steel onto soft ground,
14:57it tends to flatten.
14:59And in case you're wondering,
15:00the total mass of New York City's buildings
15:02is around 1.68 trillion pounds.
15:07That's about the same as 3.5 million statues of liberty
15:11piled up.
15:12With so much weight concentrated over a relatively small area,
15:16the underlying soils have no choice but to compress over time.
15:21And if you thought it couldn't get messier,
15:24think again.
15:25We've been building dams,
15:26which stop rivers from delivering fresh sediment to coastal areas.
15:30That sediment is kind of like Mother Nature's way
15:33of fluffing the ground back up.
15:36Without it,
15:37coastal lands are compacting like an old sponge.
15:40Plus,
15:41when wetlands are drained for agriculture or construction,
15:43the peaty soil dries out and collapses.
15:47Honestly,
15:48it's like the ground just can't catch a break.
15:53Scientists also noticed that the areas that used to be lush wetlands
15:57are now among the fastest sinking spots in the country,
16:00especially along the Gulf Coast.
16:03Louisiana, for example,
16:04is losing about a football field of land
16:07because of this mix of subsidence and rising seas.
16:10So what's the endgame here for us regular people
16:14who just want to live above sea level?
16:17Well,
16:17it's not looking great.
16:19Ghost forests,
16:20which are basically drowned woodlands,
16:22are popping up.
16:24Farmland is turning salty and unusable.
16:26And even sunny day flooding,
16:28where streets flood without any rain,
16:30is becoming a thing.
16:32Yikes!
16:33Meanwhile,
16:34over on the West Coast,
16:35California is not exactly winning either.
16:38San Francisco and Los Angeles are both sinking,
16:41which means that rising sea levels could hit them twice as hard
16:45and twice as fast.
16:47In some places,
16:48like the Palos Verdes Peninsula,
16:50the ground has been sinking so fast,
16:52people over there might as well live like moles.
16:55So,
16:56is America turning into the next Atlantis?
16:59Probably not next week,
17:01but without serious action,
17:03like cutting back on groundwater pumping
17:04and planning smarter cities,
17:06at least 500,000 people are in serious danger.
17:10And the housing damage could easily rack up
17:13a jaw-dropping $109 billion by 2050.
17:18In the end,
17:20while North America isn't about to sink
17:22like a poorly-made souffle,
17:24it's definitely showing some cracks in the crust.
17:26So maybe let's ease up on groundwater pumping,
17:30rethink how and where we build,
17:32and invest a little more in keeping our feet dry.
17:36After all,
17:37if the floor really does become lava someday,
17:39we're gonna wish we had at least fixed the leaks first.
17:44That's it for today.
17:45So hey,
17:45if you pacified your curiosity,
17:47then give the video a like
17:48and share it with your friends.
17:50Or if you want more,
17:51just click on these videos
17:52and stay on the bright side.
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