Sahara Expert Says Desert Shrinking, Calls Alarmist Tipping Points โ€œComplete Nonsenseโ€

Climate tipping points are much more fantasy than science…

…when the last ice age ended some 12,000 years ago, the eastern Sahara turned green with vegetation, teemed with wildlife and had numerous bodies of water 5000 โ€“ 10,000 years ago .

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From NoTricksZone

By P Gosselin on 11. November 2023

Climate tipping points are much more fantasy than science.

Austrian AUF 1 has posted posted a video interview with prominent German geologist and Sahara expert Dr. Stefan Krรถpelin,

Sahara has been shrinking over the past decades. Image: NASA

Dr. Krรถpelin is an award-wining geologist and climate researcher at the University of Cologne and specializes in studying the eastern Sahara desert and its climatic history. Heโ€™s been active out in the field there for more than 40 years.

In the Auf 1 interview, Dr. Krรถpelin contradicts the alarmist claims of growing deserts and rapidly approaching climate tipping points. He says that already in the late 1980s rains had begun spreading into northern Sudan and have since indeed developed into a trend. Since then, rains have increased and vegetation has spread northwards. โ€œThe desert is shrinking; it is not growing.โ€

Krรถpelin confirms that when the last ice age ended some 12,000 years ago, the eastern Sahara turned green with vegetation, teemed with wildlife and had numerous bodies of water 5000 โ€“ 10,000 years ago (more here).

Later in the interview Krรถpelin explains how the eastern Sahara climate was reconstructed using a vast multitude of sediment cores and the proxy data they yielded. According to the German geology expert: โ€œThe most important studies that we conducted all show that after the ice age, when global temperatures rose, the Sahara greenedโ€โ€ฆโ€the monsoon rains increased, the ground water roseโ€. This all led to vegetation and wildlife taking hold over thousands of year.

Then over the past few thousands of years, the region dried out. It didnโ€™t happen all of a sudden like climate models suggest.

Modelers donโ€™t understand climate complexity

When asked about dramatic tipping points (8:00) such as those claimed to be approaching by the Potsdam Institute (PIK), Krรถpelin says heโ€™s very skeptical and doesnโ€™t believe crisis scenarios such as those proposed by former PIK head, Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber. He says people making such claims โ€œnever did any studies themselves in any climate zone on the earth and they donโ€™t understand how complex climate change is.โ€

Except for catastrophic geological events, โ€œitโ€™s not how nature works,โ€ Krรถpelin says. โ€œThings change gradually.โ€

The claims that โ€œwe have to be careful that things donโ€™t get half a degree warmer, otherwise everything will collapse, is of course complete nonsense.โ€

โ€œI would say this concept [tipping points] is baseless. Much more indicates that they wonโ€™t happen than that they will happen.โ€

Late last year in Munich, he called the notion of CO2-induced climate tipping points scientifically outlandish. He also called the prospect of the Sahara spreading into Europe preposterous.