Sahara Desert

On the African continent, the Sahara is a desert. It is the world’s largest hot desert and the third largest desert overall, with an area of 9,200,000 square kilometres (3,600,000 square miles), second only to the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Arctic.

It runs from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, with deserts giving way to coastal lowlands. The Sahel, a region of semi-arid tropical savanna along the Niger River valley and the Sudan Region of Sub-Saharan Africa, borders it to the south. The western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Ar Mountains, the Ténéré Desert, and the Libyan Desert are some of the regions that make up the Sahara.

Climate:

The Sahara is the largest hot desert on the planet. It’s under the subtropical ridge, a large belt of semi-permanent subtropical warm-core high pressure where air from the upper troposphere normally falls, warming and drying the lower troposphere and inhibiting cloud formation.

The lack of clouds allows for unrestricted light and thermal radiation. Because the atmosphere above the desert is stable, any convective overturning is prevented, and rainfall is essentially non-existent. As a result, the weather is usually sunny, dry, and stable, with little danger of rain. Subsiding, divergent, dry air masses associated with subtropical high-pressure systems make convectional showers extremely difficult to form.

Flora and Fauna:

Plants:

Around 2800 species of vascular plants make up the Saharan flora.

The middle Sahara is predicted to have only 500 plant species, which is extremely low given the vast size of the region. Acacia trees, palms, succulents, spiny shrubs, and grasses have adapted to arid conditions by growing lower to avoid water loss due to strong winds, storing water in their thick stems to use during dry periods, having long roots that travel horizontally to reach the maximum area of water and to find any surface moisture, and having small thick leaves or needles to prevent water loss due to evapotranspiration. Plant leaves may completely dry out and then recover.

Animals:

The Sahara is home to several fox species, including the fennec fox, pale fox, and Rüppell’s fox. The addax, a huge white antelope, can survive in the desert for nearly a year without drinking. The Dorcas gazelle is a North African gazelle that can go without water for lengthy periods of time. The rhim gazelle and dama gazelle are two other famous gazelles.

Monitor lizards, hyrax, sand vipers, and limited populations of African wild dog, found in just 14 nations, as well as red-necked ostriches, are among the other creatures.

Interesting facts about the Sahara Desert:

1. The Sahara is commonly mistaken for the world’s largest desert. In reality, it is the world’s third-largest hot desert, behind the Arctic and Antarctica, both of which are cold deserts. During the summer, temperatures in the Sahara range from 38 to 46 degrees Celsius.
2. The Sahara Desert is 8,600,000 square kilometres in size. This, however, changes over time as the desert’s actual extent extends and reduces with the seasons.
3. According to scientists, the Sahara is now 10% larger than it was nearly a century ago. While natural climate cycles play a role, human-caused climate change is also to blame.
4. The Sahara covers about a third of the African continent and is home to 11 countries. Egypt, Algeria, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Sudan, Western Sahara, and Tunisia are among these countries.
5. The Arabic word Sahra, which means’ desert,’ is the source of the Sahara’s name.
6. Only around a quarter of the Sahara’s surface is covered by sand dunes and sheets. There are various other terrain characteristics in this desert, including salt flats, gravel plains, plateaus, and even mountains with snow.
7. While several of the Sahara’s sand dunes reach heights of over 180 metres, the highest peak in the desert is Mount Koussi, an extinct volcano in Chad with a height of 3,415 metres.
8. Desert animals include cheetahs, gazelles, ostriches, Fennec foxes, and monitor lizards, in addition to camels and goats. The deathstalker scorpion and the very venomous sand viper are two more dangerous creatures.

Conclusion:

The Sahara is the world’s largest desert (from Arabic ar, “desert”). It stretches nearly the entire length of northern Africa, measuring about 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) east to west and between 800 and 1,200 kilometres north to south, with a total area of 3,320,000 square miles (8,600,000 square kilometres); the exact area varies as the desert expands and contracts over time. The Atlantic Ocean borders the Sahara on the west, the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea on the east, and the Sahel on the south—a semiarid region that serves as a transitional zone between the Sahara and the belt of humid savannas to the south.