From NoTricksZone

By Kenneth Richard on 29. June 2023

“During the Holocene, African tropical and subtropical areas experienced extreme climatic variations.” – Yacoub et al., 2023

From ~10,000 to 5000 years ago the modern hyperarid central Sahara was green and teeming with an abundance of lakes, tropical trees, grasslands, and animal species.

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The central Sahara’s lake depths were in some cases (the Trou at Natron) “at least 300 m” high (Yacoub et al., 2023).

Then, ~5000 years ago, the Sahara abruptly (within centuries) became hyperarid, lifeless. The transition has been attributed to falling insolation (i.e., cooling) and associated decreases in precipitation and a dramatic shift in the monsoonal rainfall belt. 

Image Source: Yacoub et al., 2023

It should be noted that the transition from the hyperarid Saharan (desert) conditions during the late last glacial (8500 B.C.E., or about 10,500 years ago) to the much warmer, green, lake-covered Holocene Sahara also took “only a few centuries” (Kuper and Kropelin, 2006).

Image Source: Yacoub et al., 2023, Kuper and Kropelin, 2006