The Sahara desert contained the world’s largest freshwater lake until i evaporated in just a few hundred years, a new study has found.
Researchers from the University of London used satellite images to map abandoned shore lines around Palaeo lake Mega-Chad, and analysed sediments to calculate the age of these shore lines, producing a lake level history spanning the last 15,000 years.
At its peak around 6,000 years ago, Palaeolake Mega-Chad was the largest freshwater lake on Earth, with an area of 3,60,000 square km. Today’s Lake Chad is reduced to a fraction of that size, at only 355 square km. Climate change The drying of Lake Mega-Chad reveals a story of dramatic climate change in the southern Sahara, with a rapid change from a giant lake to desert dunes and dust, due to changes in rainfall from the West African Monsoon.
Researchers from the University of London used satellite images to map abandoned shore lines around Palaeo lake Mega-Chad, and analysed sediments to calculate the age of these shore lines, producing a lake level history spanning the last 15,000 years.
At its peak around 6,000 years ago, Palaeolake Mega-Chad was the largest freshwater lake on Earth, with an area of 3,60,000 square km. Today’s Lake Chad is reduced to a fraction of that size, at only 355 square km. Climate change The drying of Lake Mega-Chad reveals a story of dramatic climate change in the southern Sahara, with a rapid change from a giant lake to desert dunes and dust, due to changes in rainfall from the West African Monsoon.
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