Desertification and prehistoric climate

Desertification and prehistoric climate
Main articles: Sahara pump theory, African humid period, Prehistoric North Africa, and North African climate cycles
One theory for the formation of the Sahara is that the monsoon in Northern Africa was weakened because of glaciation during the Quaternary period, starting two or three million years ago. Another theory is that the monsoon was weakened when the ancient Tethys Sea dried up during the Tortonian period around 7 million years.[24]

The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years,[25] believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African Monsoon – usually southward. The cycle is caused by a 41000-year cycle in which the tilt of the earth changes between 22° and 24.5°.[21] At p

resent (2000 ACE), we are in a dry period, but it is expected that the Sahara will become green again in 15000 years (17000 ACE). When the North African monsoon is at its strongest annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the “green Sahara”. For a relatively weak North African monsoon, the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the “desert Sahara”.[26]