Oh, the HORROR! Climate Change to Make More Rain in the Sahara Desert
17 hours ago Anthony Watts
Good news (unless you are a climate doomster) from the University of Illinois Chicago Climate Research Lab. Of course, it’s another climate model, so take it with a grain of salt – Anthony
The Sahara Desert is one of the driest areas in the world. It gets just 3 inches of precipitation per year — one-tenth of the amount of Chicago’s rain, sleet and snow.
But by the second half of the 21st century, rising global temperatures could make the Sahara much wetter, according to UIC researchers. By that time, the North African desert could see 75% more precipitation than its historical norm, as reported in Npj Climate and Atmospheric Science. Under extreme climate conditions, rainfall is expected to increase in southeastern and south-central Africa, too, the researchers said.
“Changing rainfall patterns will affect billions of people, both in and outside Africa,” said lead author Thierry Ndetatsin Taguela, a postdoctoral climate researcher in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “We have to start planning to face these changes, from flood management to drought-resistant crops.”
Taguela said understanding how rising temperatures affect rainfall can help in the development of adaptation strategies. In the study, he used an ensemble of 40 climate models to simulate summer precipitation in Africa in the second half of the 21st century (2050-2099) compared with the historical period (1965-2014). Taguela analyzed models’ outputs under two climate scenarios: one that simulated moderate greenhouse gas emissions and one that simulated very high greenhouse gas emissions.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/10/21/oh-the-horror-climate-change-to-make-more-rain-in-the-sahara-desert/
