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If you check the caption you'll see that it's an infrared color image (except for the blue channel, which is in red 600um). Therefore the picture is probably mo
by stargazer-3 11y ago
If you check the caption you'll see that it's an infrared color image (except for the blue channel, which is in red 600um). Therefore the picture is probably more sensitive to the surface temperature variations, and, consecutively, North Africa might look dryer indeed.
- Y-bar 11y agoThis. Also, the precipitation since the late sixties in the area surrounding the Saharan desert has been below average, leading to desertification (http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/environment-book/desertificationinsahel.html http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/resources/environment-book/desert...): > Years of above average rainfall from the 1950s to the 1970s, were followed by drought in the sahel starting in the late 1960s. The drought has had a devastating impact on this ecologically vulnerable region and was a major impetus in the establishment of the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification and Drought. So, during the 1960:s North Africa probably looked extra lush because it had experienced over a decade of above-average precipitation.