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I am looking for information reguarding an program which is using the brackess ground water of the Sahara to support fish farms. The salty water is desalized and then used to support a tourist industry and agriculture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaveOntS ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
At the very bottom of the page there are bits of random information. Not to offend anyone, but it's written like an elementary school essay IE: Not very good. I would imagine that it's there by some mistake or as a joke, and I think it's safe to delete.
76.27.55.64 (
talk) 02:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to have a linked list of countries bordering the Sahara? I know Mauritania does, but don't know about others... -- Tomhannen 08:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
list: MAURITANIA, WESTERN SAHARA, MOROCCO, ALGERIA, TUNISIA, LIBIA, EGYPT, SUDAN,CHAD, NYGER and MALI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.202.198.230 ( talk) 12:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
What we have a recording of is an arabic speaker saying the word for "desert" an arabic, which is usually transliterated "sahara". Is this what the Sahara desert is called in arabic? Or is this supposed to be the "correct" pronunciation of the English word "Sahara" (never mind that I don't think English contains either the h sound or the r sound that are used in that file)? It also means wilderness in the form of a name.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool having an arabic ogg file, but my friend the arabic speaker was immediately surprised that this was being listed on this page. -- Andrew 05:24, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
The history of Sahara at those early times can be found here.
The word Sahara is of Arabic origin which means Desert in English. You can have a look at the List of English words of Arabic origin.
Svest 05:38, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
Well i hope nobody lies on this page cause many ppl use it for projects and stuff!!!!!!
person
Look, the pronunciation file is not a recording of the name of the desert. It's a recording of the Arabic word for desert, from which the English name for the desert is derived. It would be misleading to give the impression that that's the correct way to say the name of the desert in English - the English vowels are all different, and the h in particular has a completely different sound. Perhaps unfortunately, the Arabic would normally be transliterated to look just like "Sahara". -- Andrew 05:16, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
I don't read Arabic, and I'm sure very few other people reading this page do either. Perhaps it would be helpful to put up an IPA transcription of the arabic word for desert instead of just having it written out in a script that means nothing to us? Guypersonson 00:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
===>Let's be reasonable: 70.49.170.143, please don't put claims that directly contradict evidence in an article - that is confusing and useless to readers. Please also do not delete relevant sections without commenting on the Sahara Talk page. Please also do not insert childish diatribes with poor punctuation in the middle of an article. The web page referenced doesn't have a bibliography because it's just an abstract. Did you even look at this page? It's not racist to mention this study - please be reasonable. If you have a political axe to grind, feel free to consult some message board, this is a place for learning and fact. Justin (koavf) 16:32, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Hi 70.49.170.143! Your comments are very welcomed. However, they should be explained here and not in the main article. I see that you've stopped "commenting" there and that you are participating here instead. You may be right but everything needs to be discussed and agreed about before any major edits in the main article.
Another comment I have regarding your edits here is about the way they are structured. It is very hard to realize where your comment starts and where it does end plus that there is no identity information (no identity mark, no dates included) unless one goes checking on the history page; which is time consuming. I am sorry I got to fix that without your consent but it was for the sake of clarity. It would be very nice if you just add a note in order to help readers and participants find out about that fact. I would also suggest,-if you don't mind, that you get a Wikipedia account as probably you will be contributing from time to time. Svest 12:46, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
There are facts about shipbuilding in the area in the Babalus period. I reverted the article to the last version indicating these facts. Please check out these references : Race and history, Physicsdaily.com. Cheers Svest 00:56, May 21, 2005 (UTC) Wiki me up™
The opening sentence states that Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. I have not heard that one before and was under the impression that glaciers don't count as deserts. I know there are cold ice-free deserts in Antarctica but rather small compared to the glacier itself. Any thoughts on this? -- Bjarki 23:37, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
===>Antarctica is a cold desert See [www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/08/g35/antarctica.html here]. More sources here. It relates to precipitation. Justin (koavf) 21:09, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
===>Hot/Cold deserts It's certainly true that colloquial understandings of deserts imply warm regions like the Sahara or Gobi. To quote from the article on desert:
I'm all in favor of saying hot desert and linking Antarctica. Also, remember that Antarctica is not simply a glacier, and there is soil underneath the ice shelf - it has actual territory. Justin (koavf) 22:57, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
===>I don't understand Clearly, Antarctica is a desert. You're not actually offering any proof otherwise. Do you care to explain your position? Have you uncovered some meteorological research that supports Antarctica getting more precipitation? Justin (koavf) 04:28, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
We shouldn't lose the point here. Wikipedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive. It's a bit like the naming policy: articles should have the most common title. Almost everyone thinks of the Sahara as the largest desert ('hot place'), only a few geographers who like to define 'desert' with reference to precipitation alone would want to call Antarctica the largest desert. I think Wikipedia should just say that the Sahara is the largest
hot desert in the world. No need to clutter the lead with a confusing mention of Antarctica. –
mark
✎ 00:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What is the largest desert in the world? Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Sahara, in North Africa, is the largest non-polar desert covers 3.5 million sq. mi.
The polar deserts are larger. Antarctic - 5.5 million Sq. mi. Arctic - 5.4 million sq. mi.
So that would make Sahara the THIRD largest desert in the world. -- Jibran1 15:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, people discuss the climatic differences between hot deserts and ice deserts right here on the Talk page.
However, the article is lacking (IMHO) any relevant information on the climate in the Sahara. Important pieces of information, IMHO, apart from the fact that most of the desert is covered cool sand :-)
What's the average/peak temperature at day? What at night? How often does it rain? And how much does it rain, if it happens to rain? I mean, it's said more people die of drowning in the desert than of lack of water (yup, campers do get surprised by the sudden appearance of substatial amounts of water in wadis).
What about Fauna? And Flora?
Just suggestions on how to improve the article. IMHO. -- Klaws 22:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Can someone verify the edits regarding Nabta Playa ? I refer you to User:Mark Dingemanse/Roylee. Wizzy… ☎ 09:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I have pulled the Nabta Playa part out pending verification, and I mean verification based on Reliable Sources. I know that Nabta Playa is a well-known archaeological site but there is no reason to trust Roylee's original research on this. Roylee's strategy is usually to cite sources from all over the internet, which when partly combined serve his POV and fit into his original research. Roylee has never engaged in productive discussion of WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:RS policies despite being asked several times by several editors. I see the bulk of Roylee's edits as one of the most disruptive forms of vandalism to Wikipedia. – mark ✎ 09:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
The U.S is nearly 3 times as large as the Sahara (Sq Miles 9,631,418)so it would be impossible to fit the entire U.S. in the Sahara this claim should be removed
I've heard from a few places that the Sahara is primarily rock, and only something like 20% sand. Yet, all the photos I ever seem to see of it show endless sand dunes. Is it true that the desert is mostly rock, and if so, why aren't there more photos of this?
Funnyhat 01:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I took everything mark marked as citation required and deleted them. I am not even knowledgable in the field. If you must reinsert said content, either include a citation on the talk page or in the article - I will revert any addition of information that does not include a reputable cite. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The intro says it's 2.5 million years old. Then the article says that during the last ice age, it was a much wetter place. The last glacial period ended just 10000 years ago. Then the article (and the Sahara Desert (ecoregion) article) claims that domestication of the pig resulted in desertification. The ecoregion article also says that 5000 years ago the desert was more like a savanna. So which is it? There are a lot of conflicting claims here. – 130.74.96.32 19:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
That's because Geology is such an inexact science and no one was around. In frank personal discussions most experts will agree we have no idea how old anything is. Older than this but younger than that is about as good as you can get. Even with methods like isotope dating you can only make a guess because you can't tell how much of the isotope you started with or if the decay rate is constant. With an area that has as powerful of natural processes as the Sahara it's all just guessing. GoClick 19:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I've searched the internet to no avail, but hopefully someone here will help me. What was the highest and lowest recorded temperature in the Sahara?
I notice that almost every link in this article has been removed. While the article previously seemed to have too many links, now it doesn't look like a Wikipedia article anymore. Is there some common ground on what should be linked? – Donald Albury (Dalbury)( Talk) 00:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
As the population of the Sahara is given as 2.5 million, that obviously does not include the Nile valley, so why would Cairo then be listed as the largest city in the Sahara. In fact, the Cairo metropolitan area has a population over 15 million. I know the article used to name Nouakchott as the largest city. Perhaps the article needs to explicitly exclude the Nile valley. – Donald Albury (Dalbury)( Talk) 11:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Guyminuslife ( talk) 02:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The Good article nomination for Sahara/Archive 1 has failed, for the following reason:
I added a section on the history of climate in the Sahara. I completely removed the previous discussion of human caused desertification because I couldn't find even one web site on it, even a sketchy one, but I found a number discussing monsoon changes. Also, the page Sahara Desert (ecoregion) seemed to be the source of this, but there it seemed to be based on something someone thought they remembered. Argent Cerulean 01:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Camels in the Sahara were not introduced by the Arabs. See discussion page of History of Western Sahara. S710 09:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Camels in the Sahara, along with associated camel technology, do appear to be imported from northern Arabia, according to a leading expert.
For the best discussion of the history of camels in the Sahara, see Richard W. Bulliet (1975), The Camel and the Wheel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Republished in 1990 by Columbia University Press, with a new preface). Bulliet (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Professor of History at the Middle East Institute, Columbia University and specializes in the Middle East and North Africa. His homepage: http://www.columbia.edu/~rwb3/
According to Bulliet, the domestication of camels "first got under way between 3000 and 2500 BC" in southern Saudi Arabia, and the camel was first introduced into Africa, in Somalia, between 2500-1500 BC (Bulliet 1975:56). It was a particular type of riding saddle, however, (1975:87) invented in northern Arabia sometime between 500 and 100 BC that "transformed the economic, political, and social history of the Middle East," including the trans-Saharan caravan trade in Africa, eventually replacing wheeled transport. The new camel technology quickly spread from northern Arabia to Egypt, then south, then across the southern Sahara into the Central Sahara "around the second or first century BC," and finally spread slowly north along the caravan routes (Bulliet 1975:119).
24.91.194.249 16:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I have moved the text below here because of the challenge to the statement.
I'll have to leave the resolution of this to those who know Arabic. – Donald Albury 14:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I saw a link to "Azalai" in another article, which redirects here, although no mention of the term or what it means is in the article. 69.85.180.177 05:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The third paragraph starts "Humans have lived on the edge of the desert for almost 500,000 years." Now I could believe 100,000, but this seems like quite a stretch. -- Jolomo 16:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Other articles talk about how the Sahara grew and weakened West African empires a thousand years ago, but this article on the Sahara states that the desert has not changed much since 2500BCE. Something should be said to explain this apparent discrepancy. The article on the Ghana Empire states "By 1059, the population density around the empire's leading cities was seriously overtaxing the region. The Sahara desert was expanding southward threatening food supplies." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.243.7.56 ( talk) 06:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC).
The Sahara hasn't changed much in Egypt since ~2000 BC but it's been creeping southward in West Africa. Blaylockjam10 ( talk) 08:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
_________
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_on_sc/sci_green_sahara;_ylt=ApqNaQuC__xKe2V3H3ABR3kPLBIF
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer WASHINGTON - A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find, detailed at a news conference Thursday at the National Geographic Society.
"Part of discovery is finding things that you least expect," he said. "When you come across something like that in the middle of the desert it sends a tingle down your spine."
Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.
"Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert," said Sereno. "I realized we were in the green Sahara."
The graveyard, uncovered by hot desert winds, is near what would have been a lake at the time people lived there. It's in a region called Gobero, hidden away in Niger's forbidding Tenere Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a "desert within a desert."
The human remains dated from two distinct populations that lived there during wet times, with a dry period in between.
The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine when these ancient people lived there. Even the most recent were some 1,000 years before the building of the pyramids in Egypt.
The first group, known as the Kiffian, hunted wild animals and speared huge perch with harpoons. They colonized the region when the Sahara was at its wettest, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The researchers said the Kiffians were tall, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet.
The second group lived in the region between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago. The Tenerians were smaller and had a mixed economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding.
Their burials often included jewelry or ritual poses. For example, one girl had an upper-arm bracelet carved from a hippo tusk. An adult Tenerian male was buried with his skull resting on part of a clay vessel; another adult male was interred seated on the shell of a mud turtle.
And pollen remains show the woman and two children were buried on a bed of flowers. The researchers preserved the group just as they had been for thousands of years.
"At first glance, it's hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place," said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University.
Stojanowski said ridges on the thigh bone of one Kiffian man show he had huge leg muscles, "which suggests he was eating a lot of protein and had an active, strenuous lifestyle. The Kiffian appear to have been fairly healthy – it would be difficult to grow a body that tall and muscular without sufficient nutrition."
On the other hand, ridges on a Tenerian male were barely visible. "This man's life was less rigorous, perhaps taking smaller fish and game with more advanced hunting technologies," Stojanowski said.
Helene Jousse, a zooarchaeologist from the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria, reported that animal bones found in the area were from types common today in the Serengeti in Kenya, such as elephants, giraffes, hartebeests and warthogs.
The finds are detailed in reports in Thursday's edition of the journal PLoS One and in the September issue of National Geographic Magazine.
While the Sahara is desert today, a small difference in Earth's orbit once brought seasonal monsoons farther north, wetting the landscape with lakes with lush margins and drawing animals and people.
The research was funded by National Geographic, the Island Fund of the New York Community Trust, the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.235.122.19 ( talk) 19:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
What lives there? Is it just sand or is there other stuff? plants/animals? Maybe im missing something thuglas talk| edits 03:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Nice it would be for this article to include an actual list of the countries in which the Sahara exists. Hmains 05:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you know the Sahara is a new desert in Africa? Where is this info. The Sahara was tiny at the time of Ancient Egypt. THe Sahara was set and full of lions and elephants 1000 years ago. None of this info is included here. -- Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ 19:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
This article is not about the Nubians. The article enmeshes the Nubians in an attempt to monopolize it about Black Africans. This should go to the Nubians article to reshift focus on the Sahara. 80.58.205.40 02:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Why would you try and justify the removal of cited and relevant material on the basis of some perceived "racial" taxonomy?
The article enmeshes the Nubians in an attempt to monopolize it about Black Africans.
^This right here I believe, says a lot about what motivates you. Taharqa 21:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Uhm. First thing I'd say about the Sahara is 'it's hot and dry'. First thing someone would ask is, "How hot and how dry?" We address it's rainfall in this article, but uhm, range of temps please? 211.30.73.30 07:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Science reports new research suggesting that the Sahara may have dried out quite gradually, over the period 6k bp to 2.5k bp. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 09:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The article mentions a northern and southern border but not a eastern or western border. I'm going to assume that the western border is the Atlantic Ocean, but what's the eastern border. It looks like it's the Arabian Desert. If so, what is the difference between the two deserts besides being located on a different continent. Blaylockjam10 ( talk) 08:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
ad: It has been reported that the Sahara is expanding south by as much as 30 miles (48 km) per year -> just note: i was reading somewhere sahara slowly changes to green again; just can't find good english link to it now, so shortly from http://www.noveslovo.sk/archiv/2002-39/bezhranic.asp New Scientist article: satellite photos - see some parts green again; generaly see also http://forums.csis.org/gsi/?p=676 Africa and EU To Make Sahara ‘Green Wall’ Tblazko ( talk) 20:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Recent work by meteorologists and oceanographers has shown that much of the recent year-to-year changes in Sahel rainfall are forced by changes in sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Guinea (on the equator near the prime meridian) and by El Niño in the Pacific. When the gulf is warm, the Intertropical Convergence Zone shifts south away from the Sahel reducing the African monsoon that draws moist air into the Sahel. Longer term changes in rainfall from decade to decade are forced by changes in sea-surface temperature in the western Indian and tropical Atlantic oceans. When these areas are cool, Sahel rainfall increases.
"Observations confirm that convective " Hadley cells" actually exist near the equator, but they only extend to a latitudes of about 20°. That is where the Hadley flow descends again. The upward flow of the Hadley cells can raise the tropopause up to 16 kilometers (10 miles). Where the flow descends, the tropopause moves down too, and can be as low as 10 km. The descending air is also dry, and that causes a belt of deserts at these latitudes--in the southwest US and in Mexico, the Sahara, Arabia, Namibia and the interior of Australia." [3]
I've seen statements like this often used to explain the presence of the Sahara. But do the tremendous variations in the dryness of the Sahara imply that this global pattern of wind convection cells has also changed over time? Wnt ( talk) 11:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I removed the rather bizarre claim that the name for the Sahara came from the Taureg language. It strains credulity to believe that the Arabs needed the Taureg word for desert (or claimed word) to reach the obvious conclusion that the Sahara is, well, a desert (Sahra in Arabic). ( collounsbury ( talk) 17:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC))
There was a reference in the fauna section to the Adjule, which is a mythical cryptid that has been debunked. Sightings have been determined to be the common African Hunting Dog. I removed this along with some very poorly written text about various desert foxes, and this was reverted by FaysallF with the reason "Reverted to revision 270446135 by Caniche; debunking w/o a single reason?". I removed it again with the citation to the article on the Adjule, which is cited. The text was put back in, but the link no longer goes to the Adjule, but to the African Hunting Dog, whose existence is not debated and is not "mysterious". The entry was phrased to seem like it was a cited reference to the mythical creature claiming it was a rare subpopulation with no cite. I have again clarified the sentence so this article does not appear to be referring to mythical creatures, and again corrected the very vague and ungrammatical section on foxes. These parts appear to be written by someone who is not fluent in English, they should restrict their Wikipedia edits to the Sahara article in their own language where they can use non-English grammar and make references to mythical beasts all they want 12.40.5.69 ( talk) 20:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
How deep down does the sand extend before we reach rock bottom ...rock top? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.185.223.244 ( talk) 14:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
In the Overview section it ends with: "Global warming and poor farming methods have been given as possible causes.[9]" The source used as footnote only cites poor farming methods. The sentence either needs a new source to support global warming or the language should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.15.117 ( talk) 22:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
In the few months since I put this page on my watchlist, the information on the Sahara's size has been modified countless times to 9,000km2. I don't understand if this is a random joke or if people genuinely have difficulties figuring out these measurements. 9,000km2 is not actually that big, it's just a few times the size of Greater London. Mezigue ( talk) 09:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am surprised the article does not mention anything about the temperature (main distinguishment between deserts and non-deserts), by months and/or on average. Does anyone have access to these measurements? -- Alexander ( talk) 03:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
In case someone is wondering why I made my edit and then reverted: I was seeing this text under "History" before "Berbers": "lalalallala hey everyone hows school?". This text wasn't showing in the edit page, and looking at the vandalism removal done by the guy before me on the 10th, this line was undone, by him, so I have no idea why it was still rendered. Bug in Wikipedia? (hence the "Debugging Wikipedia" summary).
Uplink03 ( talk) 03:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
or it means moon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.119.39.14 ( talk) 21:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful to list all measurements in both systems, instead of primarily the Metric System in this article. The only instance I've seen so far is in the intro. For that matter, this should be common practice across wikipedia. It only makes sense, because not everyone undestands Centimeters, Hectares, Kilometers, kilograms etc. and likewise with inches, acres, miles, pounds, et cetera. Granted it's a major undertaking, but it's a worthwhile project, especially in articles where writers of different nationalities use different measurements within the same article.
Most of the world uses the metric system. Get used to it. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
165.91.166.69 (
talk) 01:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
What is that sentence in the introduction supposed to mean? The underlying rocks clearly have a much more ancient history, and the article itself says that "The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variation between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years." The sentence needs to be either clarified, or deleted as meaningless. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 09:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
This was added to the article. According to Desert, the Arctic is also a bigger desert. Is this correct? Begoon talk 17:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara
The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrā´ al-kubra, "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest cold desert. At over 18 mm2, it covers most of Latvia, making it almost as ......
Latvia????
I Know that i can find citations for the fact thatt the sahara once was a mongrove forest cited from walking with prehistoric beasts — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.218.194.190 ( talk) 14:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The History section needs some work as it totally overlooks the existance of ancient lakes around which the remains of the Kiffian culture (10,000 - 8,000 B.P) and Tenerian culture have been found in Niger. The Berber section can't stay as it is with no citations. The Sahara has been inhabited by different people in different areas so the information is questionable.
I would like to see some "history" of the desert itself: how the Sahara has formed and changed over time. This is only an overview of various Saharan peoples. Some history of the Sahara from an ecological/geological perspective would be appropriate and informative. 71.35.173.46 ( talk) 00:34, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
One of the statements in the article currently reads: "The African Wild Dog has some populations confirmed in the southern Sahara.[33] or perhaps only 14 countries.[34].". That last bit needs some attention. -- Vinsci ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC).
This page refers to the Sahara as the largest hot desert and third largest desert after the Antarctic and Arctic deserts. This assertion is linked to a hyperlink. However the "desert" page of Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert#Geography) stipulates that the Sahara is the second largest desert with significantly different data. I understand that the size of the Arctic varies throughout the year and is decreasing overall but this seems like a coherence issue. 157.150.192.237 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC).
I was looking at the climate section in the hopes I could find out information about the Sahara's typical temps in summer, winter, day and at night; rainfall frequency and duration, and maybe extremes (like record high and low). Instead, I got a history lesson. Seems to me the "Climate" section should be re-labelled "History." 24.211.2.144 ( talk) 16:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I need to learn about the sahara in 4,000 B.C and what the people did to survive? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.122.165.163 ( talk) 01:02, 9 December 2004 (UTC)
I was reading a book by Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky), and I came across terms which I was not familiar with (oued, erg, bled, etc.) I assumed the wikipedia page on the Sahara would have everything, but unfortunately, there is nothing in English on these terms. To my surprise, I found that the French article has all these topics. However, I don't speak French. So I think someone in the community interested in improving the Sahara article would do well to translate those portions of the French article missing from its English counterpart.
I'm not actually a community member, but I thought I could help out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.129.137.45 ( talk) 20:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Under Flora & Fauna, there is a photo with link text:
"An Urabi oasis lake, with native grasses and Date palms."
Urabi is a link. Problem is, it should be UBARI & the link should be changed. I'm no member & don't have time to figure out how to get in & try to fix it myself.
Done
Richard-of-Earth (
talk) 06:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
near the top the text "then the rain came and it flooded and it raind cats and dogs" appears and probably shouldn't
62.49.59.228 ( talk) 07:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
A number of citations in this article unnecessarily include the publisher for periodicals and websites that have their own Wikipedia article. This information has no value to anyone wanting to check or track down references. For example, publisher=Washington Post Company for references to The Washington Post, or publisher=IMDB for references to Box Office Mojo, only make the article longer - significantly longer when repeated many times - without adding anything useful. Therefore I plan to upgrade the article's citations to remove all such redundant publisher info, bringing them into line with the recommended use of the cite template (see Template:Citation#Publisher). Please raise any questions here or on my talk page. Colonies Chris ( talk) 21:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
well we already know what Sahara is its just that we have a test on monday and i need alot of help please!!!!!!!!!!!1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.250.3 ( talk) 01:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Sahara's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Voodoo Skies":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 10:32, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
We currently have ten (10!!) eleven (11 !!!) twelve (12 !!!) nineteen tables giving examples of climate data. That is way, way too many. Which three or four should we choose to give a balanced picture?
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 13:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 16:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Is this a joke? Do people really confuse Sarah and Sahara? -- 2.245.105.125 ( talk) 13:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
The temperatures section is pretty silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.30.174 ( talk) 05:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, first thing I'm trying to edit ever, because the wall of text was killing me. I've tried just putting in newlines in the raw text itself, with no success, so I went in and added br tags instead, but still with no success.
I am very sorry for breaking it but I don't know how to fix it and actually format the text with paragraphs
Ignus3 ( talk) 21:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Looks good! I find myself indebted to the mysterious racer X! — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Ignus3 (
talk •
contribs) 00:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Maghreb; NOT Mahgreb! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.5.56.45 ( talk • contribs) 23:03, 26 December 2015
Excessive inline statistics, often uncited, and barely readable prose: while I have suggested that this editor switch to tables, I'm not sure if the message got through. Reverting a dozen of more edits seem overkill, so I've tagged it for now.
Ideas, anyone? -- Forsch ( talk) 19:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Another issue is that the quality of English used makes the article difficult to read. Your English vocabulary is excellent but the structure is sometimes lacking. After the revisions being discussed I would like to clean up the English. I am quite good at this but I don't want to do it until the factual information is in good order. Portobello Prince ( talk) 01:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I can't correct any of the factual information about the Sahara, but some of the grammar and punctuation in this article is very poor. If I can remember how I would like to edit a lot of it to improve that aspect. Any advice or comments? Portobello Prince ( talk) 19:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
OK, after re-reading this page through I can see that major edits and revisions are being proposed. How I missed that the first time I don't know, maybe I was too eager to help or something. Whatever; I have been told I am good at writing clear English but I think it is best if I try to make my contribution when the article is in a more stable form. Portobello Prince ( talk) 01:16, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
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In "الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā", in the fist line of text, "aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ" should be "al-ṣaḥrāʾ", because al (ال) is the definite article and is what appears in الصحراء (al-ṣaḥrāʾ).
Nebulus55 ( talk) 22:51, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
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Sahara. Please take a moment to review
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The section geography has the interesting observation that "the Nile River .. crosses the desert underground before emptying into the Mediterranean, although aquifers sometimes surface, forming oases.... Bahariyya, Siwa..." I saw the Nile above ground in the desert, had lots of water in hot summer. So that is obviously nonsense. I dont know if oasis aquifers have anything to do with the Nile, but I doubt it for a number of the mentioned examples. Kipala ( talk) 20:15, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
>>> Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874, although Rio del Oro remained largely under Tuareg influence
The Tuaregs are not related to Western Sahara at all! They are, and always were, thousand miles far away. You should refer to Sahrawi people.
And, by the way, this clumsy sentence as the only reference to Spanish presence in Western Sahara is really poor.-- 83.52.172.57 ( talk) 10:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Amazighs (exonym: Berbers) use the word Tiniri which means literally in Tamazight (the general name of Berber languages family) a desert! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhned ( talk • contribs) 00:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Under History > Arabic expansion, it says something about gathering "resources from the source in Guinea" in reference to slaves. This is highly inappropriate and awkward language, and should be modified to reflect that expansion of Portuguese ship technology lead to a greater number of people being kidnapped as slaves
I'd make this change myself except that the page is currently locked for modification. Nicmoe ( talk) 17:02, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
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Rephrase first sentence in article.
From: "The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā , 'the Greatest Desert') is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic."
To: The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā , 'the Greatest Desert') is a desert in North Africa. It is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic."
It seems to me that the location of the Sahara is more basic information regarding the Sahara than its ranking in the global ordering of deserts. Earthawgr ( talk) 22:09, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
template.
Izno (
talk) 15:39, 17 June 2017 (UTC)There is a "Tanezrouft" page on Wikipedia, so I would suggest linking to it in the "Ecoregions" section of the page: /info/en/?search=Tanezrouft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.113.17.3 ( talk) 14:30, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
The sahara is a considerably geological topic, they physical geography and geology of the north african shield and the sahara geology is not mentioned once, and there should be some information, for example geological facts about the percent of which minerals in which forms exist there. Geology of North Africa should be visible on the page referred to as geology of the Sahara. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lifeinthetrees ( talk • contribs) 14:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
I came to this article to find out about the desertification and geo-history of the Sahara area in terms of being a land-area (geological rather than anthropocentric history).
I was stunned to find we have nothing on it, here.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 13:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
The Introduction refers in the third paragraph to a 41,000 year cycle of 'precession' as the driving force behind the alternate desert/savannah climate of the Sahara. But the precession cycle, as the link to its Wiki page notes, actually has a period of 19,000-23,000 years. It is the Earth's obliquity, its tilt, that has a period of 41,000 years. This is actually stated in the later section on the Desertification and Prehistoric climate. Can an amend be made to the Introduction to correct this confusion? kenr28 Kenr28 ( talk) 14:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Simulations of Light Curves from Earth-like Exoplanets - Planetary Habitability Laboratory @ UPR Arecibo An interesting result is that the Earth looks bluish except when the Sahara Desert is in view. Its bright yellow cancels out the bluishness, making the Earth neutral-colored.
So the Sahara Desert can be seen from across interstellar space.
I don't know if this factoid is worth including in the main article, or where it might best be included. Lpetrich ( talk) 22:17, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
I can't see any discussion about why the page is semi-protected. Is there any reason why it should remain so? 37.99.33.228 ( talk) 06:53, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Under History > Tenerians: "Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno, which sought dinosaur remains."
This should read "paleontological expedition." Paul Sereno is a paleontologist and the sentence specifies they were looking for fossils. I understand this common mix-up is a killing offense among paleontologists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.77.147.9 ( talk) 20:44, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
The correct % is 25, updated in 1919. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.77.110.17 ( talk) 19:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Not sure how to do this, I'm new, but this is obviously wrong
The average diurnal temperature range is typically between 13 and 20 °C or 23.4 and 36.0 °F. The lowest values are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than 10 °C or 18 °F
The Celsius and Farenheit degrees don't match up at all, I'm not sure which is right so I can't fix it, also regardless because the page is protected. Someone should fix this ASAP though because obviously there is an error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.208.241 ( talk) 07:24, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks
Mamata rani bachhar ( talk) 16:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I reverted a change that was meant to "fix" this because the original was a correct conversion. The figures are change in temperature, not absolute temperature. A change of 10 C is a change of 18 F, not a change of 50 F. For example, 10 C to 20 C is 50 F to 68 F.
Vox Sciurorum ( talk) 21:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
71.95.101.26 ( talk) 23:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC) Tony Sims I noticed this discrepancy -- "Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar, Timimoun, In Salah, Ouallene, Aoulef, Reggane with an elevation between 200 metres (660 ft) and 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs around 46 °F or 7.8 °C during the hottest months of the year."
Based on the other temperature citations, I would assume the intention was that the 46 °F is supposed to be 46 °C, and the 7.8 °C I supposed to be 114°F. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Sahara&action=edit§ion=1#
The excuses for the nonsense in this section -- still fucked more than 3 years later -- are wrongheaded. The text does not say it's giving a range of temperature differences (a datum that's not intuitive in any event) but a range of temperatures period. I came here looking for typical low temperatures in the Sahara, and not only is that information not here, what is here is misleading. 192.31.106.42 ( talk) 23:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights." This means it is talking about temperature differences, daytime minus nighttime. In high school I learned to use, e.g., "C°" ("Celcius-degrees", not "degrees Celcius") for temperature differences to prevent just this kind of ambiguity, but when this kind of thing has been discussed in the past, that idea didn't seem to catch on. In any case, I have tried to clarify things a bit in the text. - dcljr ( talk) 05:26, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I am looking for information reguarding an program which is using the brackess ground water of the Sahara to support fish farms. The salty water is desalized and then used to support a tourist industry and agriculture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SaveOntS ( talk • contribs) 01:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
At the very bottom of the page there are bits of random information. Not to offend anyone, but it's written like an elementary school essay IE: Not very good. I would imagine that it's there by some mistake or as a joke, and I think it's safe to delete.
76.27.55.64 (
talk) 02:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it possible to have a linked list of countries bordering the Sahara? I know Mauritania does, but don't know about others... -- Tomhannen 08:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
list: MAURITANIA, WESTERN SAHARA, MOROCCO, ALGERIA, TUNISIA, LIBIA, EGYPT, SUDAN,CHAD, NYGER and MALI. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.202.198.230 ( talk) 12:14, 9 October 2007 (UTC)
What we have a recording of is an arabic speaker saying the word for "desert" an arabic, which is usually transliterated "sahara". Is this what the Sahara desert is called in arabic? Or is this supposed to be the "correct" pronunciation of the English word "Sahara" (never mind that I don't think English contains either the h sound or the r sound that are used in that file)? It also means wilderness in the form of a name.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool having an arabic ogg file, but my friend the arabic speaker was immediately surprised that this was being listed on this page. -- Andrew 05:24, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
The history of Sahara at those early times can be found here.
The word Sahara is of Arabic origin which means Desert in English. You can have a look at the List of English words of Arabic origin.
Svest 05:38, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
Well i hope nobody lies on this page cause many ppl use it for projects and stuff!!!!!!
person
Look, the pronunciation file is not a recording of the name of the desert. It's a recording of the Arabic word for desert, from which the English name for the desert is derived. It would be misleading to give the impression that that's the correct way to say the name of the desert in English - the English vowels are all different, and the h in particular has a completely different sound. Perhaps unfortunately, the Arabic would normally be transliterated to look just like "Sahara". -- Andrew 05:16, Apr 16, 2005 (UTC)
I don't read Arabic, and I'm sure very few other people reading this page do either. Perhaps it would be helpful to put up an IPA transcription of the arabic word for desert instead of just having it written out in a script that means nothing to us? Guypersonson 00:12, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
===>Let's be reasonable: 70.49.170.143, please don't put claims that directly contradict evidence in an article - that is confusing and useless to readers. Please also do not delete relevant sections without commenting on the Sahara Talk page. Please also do not insert childish diatribes with poor punctuation in the middle of an article. The web page referenced doesn't have a bibliography because it's just an abstract. Did you even look at this page? It's not racist to mention this study - please be reasonable. If you have a political axe to grind, feel free to consult some message board, this is a place for learning and fact. Justin (koavf) 16:32, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Hi 70.49.170.143! Your comments are very welcomed. However, they should be explained here and not in the main article. I see that you've stopped "commenting" there and that you are participating here instead. You may be right but everything needs to be discussed and agreed about before any major edits in the main article.
Another comment I have regarding your edits here is about the way they are structured. It is very hard to realize where your comment starts and where it does end plus that there is no identity information (no identity mark, no dates included) unless one goes checking on the history page; which is time consuming. I am sorry I got to fix that without your consent but it was for the sake of clarity. It would be very nice if you just add a note in order to help readers and participants find out about that fact. I would also suggest,-if you don't mind, that you get a Wikipedia account as probably you will be contributing from time to time. Svest 12:46, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)
There are facts about shipbuilding in the area in the Babalus period. I reverted the article to the last version indicating these facts. Please check out these references : Race and history, Physicsdaily.com. Cheers Svest 00:56, May 21, 2005 (UTC) Wiki me up™
The opening sentence states that Antarctica is the largest desert in the world. I have not heard that one before and was under the impression that glaciers don't count as deserts. I know there are cold ice-free deserts in Antarctica but rather small compared to the glacier itself. Any thoughts on this? -- Bjarki 23:37, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
===>Antarctica is a cold desert See [www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/lessons/08/g35/antarctica.html here]. More sources here. It relates to precipitation. Justin (koavf) 21:09, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
===>Hot/Cold deserts It's certainly true that colloquial understandings of deserts imply warm regions like the Sahara or Gobi. To quote from the article on desert:
I'm all in favor of saying hot desert and linking Antarctica. Also, remember that Antarctica is not simply a glacier, and there is soil underneath the ice shelf - it has actual territory. Justin (koavf) 22:57, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
===>I don't understand Clearly, Antarctica is a desert. You're not actually offering any proof otherwise. Do you care to explain your position? Have you uncovered some meteorological research that supports Antarctica getting more precipitation? Justin (koavf) 04:28, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
We shouldn't lose the point here. Wikipedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive. It's a bit like the naming policy: articles should have the most common title. Almost everyone thinks of the Sahara as the largest desert ('hot place'), only a few geographers who like to define 'desert' with reference to precipitation alone would want to call Antarctica the largest desert. I think Wikipedia should just say that the Sahara is the largest
hot desert in the world. No need to clutter the lead with a confusing mention of Antarctica. –
mark
✎ 00:48, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What is the largest desert in the world? Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Sahara, in North Africa, is the largest non-polar desert covers 3.5 million sq. mi.
The polar deserts are larger. Antarctic - 5.5 million Sq. mi. Arctic - 5.4 million sq. mi.
So that would make Sahara the THIRD largest desert in the world. -- Jibran1 15:09, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, people discuss the climatic differences between hot deserts and ice deserts right here on the Talk page.
However, the article is lacking (IMHO) any relevant information on the climate in the Sahara. Important pieces of information, IMHO, apart from the fact that most of the desert is covered cool sand :-)
What's the average/peak temperature at day? What at night? How often does it rain? And how much does it rain, if it happens to rain? I mean, it's said more people die of drowning in the desert than of lack of water (yup, campers do get surprised by the sudden appearance of substatial amounts of water in wadis).
What about Fauna? And Flora?
Just suggestions on how to improve the article. IMHO. -- Klaws 22:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Can someone verify the edits regarding Nabta Playa ? I refer you to User:Mark Dingemanse/Roylee. Wizzy… ☎ 09:48, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
I have pulled the Nabta Playa part out pending verification, and I mean verification based on Reliable Sources. I know that Nabta Playa is a well-known archaeological site but there is no reason to trust Roylee's original research on this. Roylee's strategy is usually to cite sources from all over the internet, which when partly combined serve his POV and fit into his original research. Roylee has never engaged in productive discussion of WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:RS policies despite being asked several times by several editors. I see the bulk of Roylee's edits as one of the most disruptive forms of vandalism to Wikipedia. – mark ✎ 09:29, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
The U.S is nearly 3 times as large as the Sahara (Sq Miles 9,631,418)so it would be impossible to fit the entire U.S. in the Sahara this claim should be removed
I've heard from a few places that the Sahara is primarily rock, and only something like 20% sand. Yet, all the photos I ever seem to see of it show endless sand dunes. Is it true that the desert is mostly rock, and if so, why aren't there more photos of this?
Funnyhat 01:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I took everything mark marked as citation required and deleted them. I am not even knowledgable in the field. If you must reinsert said content, either include a citation on the talk page or in the article - I will revert any addition of information that does not include a reputable cite. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The intro says it's 2.5 million years old. Then the article says that during the last ice age, it was a much wetter place. The last glacial period ended just 10000 years ago. Then the article (and the Sahara Desert (ecoregion) article) claims that domestication of the pig resulted in desertification. The ecoregion article also says that 5000 years ago the desert was more like a savanna. So which is it? There are a lot of conflicting claims here. – 130.74.96.32 19:51, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
That's because Geology is such an inexact science and no one was around. In frank personal discussions most experts will agree we have no idea how old anything is. Older than this but younger than that is about as good as you can get. Even with methods like isotope dating you can only make a guess because you can't tell how much of the isotope you started with or if the decay rate is constant. With an area that has as powerful of natural processes as the Sahara it's all just guessing. GoClick 19:17, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I've searched the internet to no avail, but hopefully someone here will help me. What was the highest and lowest recorded temperature in the Sahara?
I notice that almost every link in this article has been removed. While the article previously seemed to have too many links, now it doesn't look like a Wikipedia article anymore. Is there some common ground on what should be linked? – Donald Albury (Dalbury)( Talk) 00:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
As the population of the Sahara is given as 2.5 million, that obviously does not include the Nile valley, so why would Cairo then be listed as the largest city in the Sahara. In fact, the Cairo metropolitan area has a population over 15 million. I know the article used to name Nouakchott as the largest city. Perhaps the article needs to explicitly exclude the Nile valley. – Donald Albury (Dalbury)( Talk) 11:24, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Guyminuslife ( talk) 02:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The Good article nomination for Sahara/Archive 1 has failed, for the following reason:
I added a section on the history of climate in the Sahara. I completely removed the previous discussion of human caused desertification because I couldn't find even one web site on it, even a sketchy one, but I found a number discussing monsoon changes. Also, the page Sahara Desert (ecoregion) seemed to be the source of this, but there it seemed to be based on something someone thought they remembered. Argent Cerulean 01:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
Camels in the Sahara were not introduced by the Arabs. See discussion page of History of Western Sahara. S710 09:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Camels in the Sahara, along with associated camel technology, do appear to be imported from northern Arabia, according to a leading expert.
For the best discussion of the history of camels in the Sahara, see Richard W. Bulliet (1975), The Camel and the Wheel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (Republished in 1990 by Columbia University Press, with a new preface). Bulliet (Ph.D. Harvard University) is Professor of History at the Middle East Institute, Columbia University and specializes in the Middle East and North Africa. His homepage: http://www.columbia.edu/~rwb3/
According to Bulliet, the domestication of camels "first got under way between 3000 and 2500 BC" in southern Saudi Arabia, and the camel was first introduced into Africa, in Somalia, between 2500-1500 BC (Bulliet 1975:56). It was a particular type of riding saddle, however, (1975:87) invented in northern Arabia sometime between 500 and 100 BC that "transformed the economic, political, and social history of the Middle East," including the trans-Saharan caravan trade in Africa, eventually replacing wheeled transport. The new camel technology quickly spread from northern Arabia to Egypt, then south, then across the southern Sahara into the Central Sahara "around the second or first century BC," and finally spread slowly north along the caravan routes (Bulliet 1975:119).
24.91.194.249 16:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I have moved the text below here because of the challenge to the statement.
I'll have to leave the resolution of this to those who know Arabic. – Donald Albury 14:28, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
I saw a link to "Azalai" in another article, which redirects here, although no mention of the term or what it means is in the article. 69.85.180.177 05:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The third paragraph starts "Humans have lived on the edge of the desert for almost 500,000 years." Now I could believe 100,000, but this seems like quite a stretch. -- Jolomo 16:56, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Other articles talk about how the Sahara grew and weakened West African empires a thousand years ago, but this article on the Sahara states that the desert has not changed much since 2500BCE. Something should be said to explain this apparent discrepancy. The article on the Ghana Empire states "By 1059, the population density around the empire's leading cities was seriously overtaxing the region. The Sahara desert was expanding southward threatening food supplies." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 165.243.7.56 ( talk) 06:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC).
The Sahara hasn't changed much in Egypt since ~2000 BC but it's been creeping southward in West Africa. Blaylockjam10 ( talk) 08:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
_________
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080814/ap_on_sc/sci_green_sahara;_ylt=ApqNaQuC__xKe2V3H3ABR3kPLBIF
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer WASHINGTON - A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert. The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.
Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find, detailed at a news conference Thursday at the National Geographic Society.
"Part of discovery is finding things that you least expect," he said. "When you come across something like that in the middle of the desert it sends a tingle down your spine."
Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.
"Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert," said Sereno. "I realized we were in the green Sahara."
The graveyard, uncovered by hot desert winds, is near what would have been a lake at the time people lived there. It's in a region called Gobero, hidden away in Niger's forbidding Tenere Desert, known to Tuareg nomads as a "desert within a desert."
The human remains dated from two distinct populations that lived there during wet times, with a dry period in between.
The researchers used radiocarbon dating to determine when these ancient people lived there. Even the most recent were some 1,000 years before the building of the pyramids in Egypt.
The first group, known as the Kiffian, hunted wild animals and speared huge perch with harpoons. They colonized the region when the Sahara was at its wettest, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The researchers said the Kiffians were tall, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet.
The second group lived in the region between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago. The Tenerians were smaller and had a mixed economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding.
Their burials often included jewelry or ritual poses. For example, one girl had an upper-arm bracelet carved from a hippo tusk. An adult Tenerian male was buried with his skull resting on part of a clay vessel; another adult male was interred seated on the shell of a mud turtle.
And pollen remains show the woman and two children were buried on a bed of flowers. The researchers preserved the group just as they had been for thousands of years.
"At first glance, it's hard to imagine two more biologically distinct groups of people burying their dead in the same place," said team member Chris Stojanowski, a bioarchaeologist from Arizona State University.
Stojanowski said ridges on the thigh bone of one Kiffian man show he had huge leg muscles, "which suggests he was eating a lot of protein and had an active, strenuous lifestyle. The Kiffian appear to have been fairly healthy – it would be difficult to grow a body that tall and muscular without sufficient nutrition."
On the other hand, ridges on a Tenerian male were barely visible. "This man's life was less rigorous, perhaps taking smaller fish and game with more advanced hunting technologies," Stojanowski said.
Helene Jousse, a zooarchaeologist from the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, Austria, reported that animal bones found in the area were from types common today in the Serengeti in Kenya, such as elephants, giraffes, hartebeests and warthogs.
The finds are detailed in reports in Thursday's edition of the journal PLoS One and in the September issue of National Geographic Magazine.
While the Sahara is desert today, a small difference in Earth's orbit once brought seasonal monsoons farther north, wetting the landscape with lakes with lush margins and drawing animals and people.
The research was funded by National Geographic, the Island Fund of the New York Community Trust, the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.235.122.19 ( talk) 19:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
What lives there? Is it just sand or is there other stuff? plants/animals? Maybe im missing something thuglas talk| edits 03:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Nice it would be for this article to include an actual list of the countries in which the Sahara exists. Hmains 05:24, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
Do you know the Sahara is a new desert in Africa? Where is this info. The Sahara was tiny at the time of Ancient Egypt. THe Sahara was set and full of lions and elephants 1000 years ago. None of this info is included here. -- Halqh حَلَقَة הלכהሐላቃህ 19:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
This article is not about the Nubians. The article enmeshes the Nubians in an attempt to monopolize it about Black Africans. This should go to the Nubians article to reshift focus on the Sahara. 80.58.205.40 02:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Why would you try and justify the removal of cited and relevant material on the basis of some perceived "racial" taxonomy?
The article enmeshes the Nubians in an attempt to monopolize it about Black Africans.
^This right here I believe, says a lot about what motivates you. Taharqa 21:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Uhm. First thing I'd say about the Sahara is 'it's hot and dry'. First thing someone would ask is, "How hot and how dry?" We address it's rainfall in this article, but uhm, range of temps please? 211.30.73.30 07:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
Science reports new research suggesting that the Sahara may have dried out quite gradually, over the period 6k bp to 2.5k bp. Mostlyharmless ( talk) 09:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The article mentions a northern and southern border but not a eastern or western border. I'm going to assume that the western border is the Atlantic Ocean, but what's the eastern border. It looks like it's the Arabian Desert. If so, what is the difference between the two deserts besides being located on a different continent. Blaylockjam10 ( talk) 08:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
ad: It has been reported that the Sahara is expanding south by as much as 30 miles (48 km) per year -> just note: i was reading somewhere sahara slowly changes to green again; just can't find good english link to it now, so shortly from http://www.noveslovo.sk/archiv/2002-39/bezhranic.asp New Scientist article: satellite photos - see some parts green again; generaly see also http://forums.csis.org/gsi/?p=676 Africa and EU To Make Sahara ‘Green Wall’ Tblazko ( talk) 20:32, 15 August 2008 (UTC)
Recent work by meteorologists and oceanographers has shown that much of the recent year-to-year changes in Sahel rainfall are forced by changes in sea-surface temperature in the Gulf of Guinea (on the equator near the prime meridian) and by El Niño in the Pacific. When the gulf is warm, the Intertropical Convergence Zone shifts south away from the Sahel reducing the African monsoon that draws moist air into the Sahel. Longer term changes in rainfall from decade to decade are forced by changes in sea-surface temperature in the western Indian and tropical Atlantic oceans. When these areas are cool, Sahel rainfall increases.
"Observations confirm that convective " Hadley cells" actually exist near the equator, but they only extend to a latitudes of about 20°. That is where the Hadley flow descends again. The upward flow of the Hadley cells can raise the tropopause up to 16 kilometers (10 miles). Where the flow descends, the tropopause moves down too, and can be as low as 10 km. The descending air is also dry, and that causes a belt of deserts at these latitudes--in the southwest US and in Mexico, the Sahara, Arabia, Namibia and the interior of Australia." [3]
I've seen statements like this often used to explain the presence of the Sahara. But do the tremendous variations in the dryness of the Sahara imply that this global pattern of wind convection cells has also changed over time? Wnt ( talk) 11:04, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I removed the rather bizarre claim that the name for the Sahara came from the Taureg language. It strains credulity to believe that the Arabs needed the Taureg word for desert (or claimed word) to reach the obvious conclusion that the Sahara is, well, a desert (Sahra in Arabic). ( collounsbury ( talk) 17:11, 23 December 2008 (UTC))
There was a reference in the fauna section to the Adjule, which is a mythical cryptid that has been debunked. Sightings have been determined to be the common African Hunting Dog. I removed this along with some very poorly written text about various desert foxes, and this was reverted by FaysallF with the reason "Reverted to revision 270446135 by Caniche; debunking w/o a single reason?". I removed it again with the citation to the article on the Adjule, which is cited. The text was put back in, but the link no longer goes to the Adjule, but to the African Hunting Dog, whose existence is not debated and is not "mysterious". The entry was phrased to seem like it was a cited reference to the mythical creature claiming it was a rare subpopulation with no cite. I have again clarified the sentence so this article does not appear to be referring to mythical creatures, and again corrected the very vague and ungrammatical section on foxes. These parts appear to be written by someone who is not fluent in English, they should restrict their Wikipedia edits to the Sahara article in their own language where they can use non-English grammar and make references to mythical beasts all they want 12.40.5.69 ( talk) 20:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
How deep down does the sand extend before we reach rock bottom ...rock top? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.185.223.244 ( talk) 14:55, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
In the Overview section it ends with: "Global warming and poor farming methods have been given as possible causes.[9]" The source used as footnote only cites poor farming methods. The sentence either needs a new source to support global warming or the language should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.250.15.117 ( talk) 22:17, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
In the few months since I put this page on my watchlist, the information on the Sahara's size has been modified countless times to 9,000km2. I don't understand if this is a random joke or if people genuinely have difficulties figuring out these measurements. 9,000km2 is not actually that big, it's just a few times the size of Greater London. Mezigue ( talk) 09:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
I am surprised the article does not mention anything about the temperature (main distinguishment between deserts and non-deserts), by months and/or on average. Does anyone have access to these measurements? -- Alexander ( talk) 03:13, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
In case someone is wondering why I made my edit and then reverted: I was seeing this text under "History" before "Berbers": "lalalallala hey everyone hows school?". This text wasn't showing in the edit page, and looking at the vandalism removal done by the guy before me on the 10th, this line was undone, by him, so I have no idea why it was still rendered. Bug in Wikipedia? (hence the "Debugging Wikipedia" summary).
Uplink03 ( talk) 03:51, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
or it means moon —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.119.39.14 ( talk) 21:44, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be helpful to list all measurements in both systems, instead of primarily the Metric System in this article. The only instance I've seen so far is in the intro. For that matter, this should be common practice across wikipedia. It only makes sense, because not everyone undestands Centimeters, Hectares, Kilometers, kilograms etc. and likewise with inches, acres, miles, pounds, et cetera. Granted it's a major undertaking, but it's a worthwhile project, especially in articles where writers of different nationalities use different measurements within the same article.
Most of the world uses the metric system. Get used to it. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
165.91.166.69 (
talk) 01:40, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
What is that sentence in the introduction supposed to mean? The underlying rocks clearly have a much more ancient history, and the article itself says that "The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variation between wet and dry over the last few hundred thousand years." The sentence needs to be either clarified, or deleted as meaningless. Ghmyrtle ( talk) 09:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
This was added to the article. According to Desert, the Arctic is also a bigger desert. Is this correct? Begoon talk 17:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara
The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrā´ al-kubra, "The Greatest Desert") is the world's largest cold desert. At over 18 mm2, it covers most of Latvia, making it almost as ......
Latvia????
I Know that i can find citations for the fact thatt the sahara once was a mongrove forest cited from walking with prehistoric beasts — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.218.194.190 ( talk) 14:02, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
The History section needs some work as it totally overlooks the existance of ancient lakes around which the remains of the Kiffian culture (10,000 - 8,000 B.P) and Tenerian culture have been found in Niger. The Berber section can't stay as it is with no citations. The Sahara has been inhabited by different people in different areas so the information is questionable.
I would like to see some "history" of the desert itself: how the Sahara has formed and changed over time. This is only an overview of various Saharan peoples. Some history of the Sahara from an ecological/geological perspective would be appropriate and informative. 71.35.173.46 ( talk) 00:34, 5 February 2011 (UTC)
One of the statements in the article currently reads: "The African Wild Dog has some populations confirmed in the southern Sahara.[33] or perhaps only 14 countries.[34].". That last bit needs some attention. -- Vinsci ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC).
This page refers to the Sahara as the largest hot desert and third largest desert after the Antarctic and Arctic deserts. This assertion is linked to a hyperlink. However the "desert" page of Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert#Geography) stipulates that the Sahara is the second largest desert with significantly different data. I understand that the size of the Arctic varies throughout the year and is decreasing overall but this seems like a coherence issue. 157.150.192.237 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:20, 27 January 2012 (UTC).
I was looking at the climate section in the hopes I could find out information about the Sahara's typical temps in summer, winter, day and at night; rainfall frequency and duration, and maybe extremes (like record high and low). Instead, I got a history lesson. Seems to me the "Climate" section should be re-labelled "History." 24.211.2.144 ( talk) 16:47, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I need to learn about the sahara in 4,000 B.C and what the people did to survive? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.122.165.163 ( talk) 01:02, 9 December 2004 (UTC)
I was reading a book by Paul Bowles (The Sheltering Sky), and I came across terms which I was not familiar with (oued, erg, bled, etc.) I assumed the wikipedia page on the Sahara would have everything, but unfortunately, there is nothing in English on these terms. To my surprise, I found that the French article has all these topics. However, I don't speak French. So I think someone in the community interested in improving the Sahara article would do well to translate those portions of the French article missing from its English counterpart.
I'm not actually a community member, but I thought I could help out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.129.137.45 ( talk) 20:58, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Under Flora & Fauna, there is a photo with link text:
"An Urabi oasis lake, with native grasses and Date palms."
Urabi is a link. Problem is, it should be UBARI & the link should be changed. I'm no member & don't have time to figure out how to get in & try to fix it myself.
Done
Richard-of-Earth (
talk) 06:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
near the top the text "then the rain came and it flooded and it raind cats and dogs" appears and probably shouldn't
62.49.59.228 ( talk) 07:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)
A number of citations in this article unnecessarily include the publisher for periodicals and websites that have their own Wikipedia article. This information has no value to anyone wanting to check or track down references. For example, publisher=Washington Post Company for references to The Washington Post, or publisher=IMDB for references to Box Office Mojo, only make the article longer - significantly longer when repeated many times - without adding anything useful. Therefore I plan to upgrade the article's citations to remove all such redundant publisher info, bringing them into line with the recommended use of the cite template (see Template:Citation#Publisher). Please raise any questions here or on my talk page. Colonies Chris ( talk) 21:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)
well we already know what Sahara is its just that we have a test on monday and i need alot of help please!!!!!!!!!!!1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.250.3 ( talk) 01:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Sahara's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "Voodoo Skies":
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 10:32, 13 April 2014 (UTC)
We currently have ten (10!!) eleven (11 !!!) twelve (12 !!!) nineteen tables giving examples of climate data. That is way, way too many. Which three or four should we choose to give a balanced picture?
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 13:19, 15 April 2014 (UTC)
Ghmyrtle (
talk) 16:20, 6 May 2014 (UTC)
Is this a joke? Do people really confuse Sarah and Sahara? -- 2.245.105.125 ( talk) 13:44, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
The temperatures section is pretty silly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.148.30.174 ( talk) 05:32, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, first thing I'm trying to edit ever, because the wall of text was killing me. I've tried just putting in newlines in the raw text itself, with no success, so I went in and added br tags instead, but still with no success.
I am very sorry for breaking it but I don't know how to fix it and actually format the text with paragraphs
Ignus3 ( talk) 21:47, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
Looks good! I find myself indebted to the mysterious racer X! — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
Ignus3 (
talk •
contribs) 00:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
Maghreb; NOT Mahgreb! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.5.56.45 ( talk • contribs) 23:03, 26 December 2015
Excessive inline statistics, often uncited, and barely readable prose: while I have suggested that this editor switch to tables, I'm not sure if the message got through. Reverting a dozen of more edits seem overkill, so I've tagged it for now.
Ideas, anyone? -- Forsch ( talk) 19:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
Another issue is that the quality of English used makes the article difficult to read. Your English vocabulary is excellent but the structure is sometimes lacking. After the revisions being discussed I would like to clean up the English. I am quite good at this but I don't want to do it until the factual information is in good order. Portobello Prince ( talk) 01:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
I can't correct any of the factual information about the Sahara, but some of the grammar and punctuation in this article is very poor. If I can remember how I would like to edit a lot of it to improve that aspect. Any advice or comments? Portobello Prince ( talk) 19:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
OK, after re-reading this page through I can see that major edits and revisions are being proposed. How I missed that the first time I don't know, maybe I was too eager to help or something. Whatever; I have been told I am good at writing clear English but I think it is best if I try to make my contribution when the article is in a more stable form. Portobello Prince ( talk) 01:16, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
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In "الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā", in the fist line of text, "aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ" should be "al-ṣaḥrāʾ", because al (ال) is the definite article and is what appears in الصحراء (al-ṣaḥrāʾ).
Nebulus55 ( talk) 22:51, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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Sahara. Please take a moment to review
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The section geography has the interesting observation that "the Nile River .. crosses the desert underground before emptying into the Mediterranean, although aquifers sometimes surface, forming oases.... Bahariyya, Siwa..." I saw the Nile above ground in the desert, had lots of water in hot summer. So that is obviously nonsense. I dont know if oasis aquifers have anything to do with the Nile, but I doubt it for a number of the mentioned examples. Kipala ( talk) 20:15, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
>>> Spain captured present-day Western Sahara after 1874, although Rio del Oro remained largely under Tuareg influence
The Tuaregs are not related to Western Sahara at all! They are, and always were, thousand miles far away. You should refer to Sahrawi people.
And, by the way, this clumsy sentence as the only reference to Spanish presence in Western Sahara is really poor.-- 83.52.172.57 ( talk) 10:23, 24 November 2016 (UTC)
Amazighs (exonym: Berbers) use the word Tiniri which means literally in Tamazight (the general name of Berber languages family) a desert! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Muhned ( talk • contribs) 00:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Under History > Arabic expansion, it says something about gathering "resources from the source in Guinea" in reference to slaves. This is highly inappropriate and awkward language, and should be modified to reflect that expansion of Portuguese ship technology lead to a greater number of people being kidnapped as slaves
I'd make this change myself except that the page is currently locked for modification. Nicmoe ( talk) 17:02, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
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edit request to
Sahara has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Rephrase first sentence in article.
From: "The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā , 'the Greatest Desert') is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic."
To: The Sahara (Arabic: الصحراء الكبرى, aṣ-ṣaḥrāʾ al-kubrā , 'the Greatest Desert') is a desert in North Africa. It is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic."
It seems to me that the location of the Sahara is more basic information regarding the Sahara than its ranking in the global ordering of deserts. Earthawgr ( talk) 22:09, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
{{
edit semi-protected}}
template.
Izno (
talk) 15:39, 17 June 2017 (UTC)There is a "Tanezrouft" page on Wikipedia, so I would suggest linking to it in the "Ecoregions" section of the page: /info/en/?search=Tanezrouft. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.113.17.3 ( talk) 14:30, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
The sahara is a considerably geological topic, they physical geography and geology of the north african shield and the sahara geology is not mentioned once, and there should be some information, for example geological facts about the percent of which minerals in which forms exist there. Geology of North Africa should be visible on the page referred to as geology of the Sahara. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lifeinthetrees ( talk • contribs) 14:25, 18 January 2018 (UTC)
I came to this article to find out about the desertification and geo-history of the Sahara area in terms of being a land-area (geological rather than anthropocentric history).
I was stunned to find we have nothing on it, here.
FT2 ( Talk | email) 13:41, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
The Introduction refers in the third paragraph to a 41,000 year cycle of 'precession' as the driving force behind the alternate desert/savannah climate of the Sahara. But the precession cycle, as the link to its Wiki page notes, actually has a period of 19,000-23,000 years. It is the Earth's obliquity, its tilt, that has a period of 41,000 years. This is actually stated in the later section on the Desertification and Prehistoric climate. Can an amend be made to the Introduction to correct this confusion? kenr28 Kenr28 ( talk) 14:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Simulations of Light Curves from Earth-like Exoplanets - Planetary Habitability Laboratory @ UPR Arecibo An interesting result is that the Earth looks bluish except when the Sahara Desert is in view. Its bright yellow cancels out the bluishness, making the Earth neutral-colored.
So the Sahara Desert can be seen from across interstellar space.
I don't know if this factoid is worth including in the main article, or where it might best be included. Lpetrich ( talk) 22:17, 25 December 2018 (UTC)
I can't see any discussion about why the page is semi-protected. Is there any reason why it should remain so? 37.99.33.228 ( talk) 06:53, 15 September 2019 (UTC)
Under History > Tenerians: "Gobero was discovered in 2000 during an archaeological expedition led by Paul Sereno, which sought dinosaur remains."
This should read "paleontological expedition." Paul Sereno is a paleontologist and the sentence specifies they were looking for fossils. I understand this common mix-up is a killing offense among paleontologists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.77.147.9 ( talk) 20:44, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
The correct % is 25, updated in 1919. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.77.110.17 ( talk) 19:57, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
Not sure how to do this, I'm new, but this is obviously wrong
The average diurnal temperature range is typically between 13 and 20 °C or 23.4 and 36.0 °F. The lowest values are found along the coastal regions due to high humidity and are often even lower than 10 °C or 18 °F
The Celsius and Farenheit degrees don't match up at all, I'm not sure which is right so I can't fix it, also regardless because the page is protected. Someone should fix this ASAP though because obviously there is an error. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.16.208.241 ( talk) 07:24, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
Thanks
Mamata rani bachhar ( talk) 16:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
I reverted a change that was meant to "fix" this because the original was a correct conversion. The figures are change in temperature, not absolute temperature. A change of 10 C is a change of 18 F, not a change of 50 F. For example, 10 C to 20 C is 50 F to 68 F.
Vox Sciurorum ( talk) 21:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
71.95.101.26 ( talk) 23:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC) Tony Sims I noticed this discrepancy -- "Other hot spots in Algeria such as Adrar, Timimoun, In Salah, Ouallene, Aoulef, Reggane with an elevation between 200 metres (660 ft) and 400 metres (1,300 ft) above sea level get slightly lower summer average highs around 46 °F or 7.8 °C during the hottest months of the year."
Based on the other temperature citations, I would assume the intention was that the 46 °F is supposed to be 46 °C, and the 7.8 °C I supposed to be 114°F. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Sahara&action=edit§ion=1#
The excuses for the nonsense in this section -- still fucked more than 3 years later -- are wrongheaded. The text does not say it's giving a range of temperature differences (a datum that's not intuitive in any event) but a range of temperatures period. I came here looking for typical low temperatures in the Sahara, and not only is that information not here, what is here is misleading. 192.31.106.42 ( talk) 23:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Due to lack of cloud cover and very low humidity, the desert usually has high diurnal temperature variations between days and nights." This means it is talking about temperature differences, daytime minus nighttime. In high school I learned to use, e.g., "C°" ("Celcius-degrees", not "degrees Celcius") for temperature differences to prevent just this kind of ambiguity, but when this kind of thing has been discussed in the past, that idea didn't seem to catch on. In any case, I have tried to clarify things a bit in the text. - dcljr ( talk) 05:26, 20 February 2020 (UTC)