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#Saharadesert
New Year, New Stories – Audio Signals Podcast is Back and it is all about storytelling! 
https://www.audiosignalspodcast.com/
After a packed 2024 filled with incredible conversations, I took a short break in January to recharge. But now, it’s time to dive back into a year that’s already shaping up to be even bigger, bolder, and filled with extraordinary #stories and #storytellers.
And what better way to kick off 2025 than with a story that embodies everything this podcast is about—pushing limits, embracing adventure, and redefining what’s possible through amazing shared stories!
Meet Karen Meades—a woman who didn’t just challenge herself; she ran straight into the most extreme environments on the planet. From crossing the #Amazon jungle, to enduring the brutal #SaharaDesert, to racing through #Antarctica, Karen has taken on #ultramarathons that test not just the body, but the very essence of human #resilience.
She wasn’t always an endurance athlete. In fact, she never even thought of herself as one. But a single decision—to run a local 5K—set her on a path that changed everything. Step by step, challenge by challenge, she discovered what she was truly capable of.
But then life threw a different kind of obstacle in her way. One that forced her to rethink adventure and discover a new way to live without limits.
Her story is captured in My Limitless Life, a #book co-written with Barry Finlay, who helped bring her journey to life in a book that is as inspiring as it is breathtaking. In this episode, we explore:
What drives someone to take on seemingly impossible feats How adventure and #storytelling intersect Why limits are often self-imposed What happens when life forces you to redefine them
Watch the teaser video: https://youtu.be/gAIl85p-pCE
Full video episode: https://youtu.be/2pf0KMKYtx8
Listen to the audio podcast: https://www.audiosignalspodcast.com/episodes/book-my-limitless-life-i-interview-with-authors-karen-meades-and-barry-finlay-audio-signals-podcast-with-marco-ciappelli
Subscribe to the channel for more: https://www.audiosignalspodcast.com/
2025 is going to be a year of amazing stories, and this is just the beginning. Join me on Audio Signals and let’s celebrate the storytellers who make them happen.
Enjoy, share, and be awesome! :)
Ancient Art of Tassili n’Ajjer: 12,000-Year-Old Window into Sahara’s Past
Discover the ancient cave paintings of Tassili n’Ajjer in Algeria’s Sahara Desert, a UNESCO World Heritage Site featuring over 15,000 prehistoric artworks. These stunning engravings and drawings, dating back 12,000 years, reveal insights into early human life, climate change, and the region’s once-lush environment. Explore this lunar-like landscape of sandstone formations and humanity’s enduring creativity.
Our #Climate Is So Screwed Up, It Rained in the #SaharaDesert
Story by Maggie Harrison Dupré
October 10, 2024
Darude Rainstorm
"How messed up is planet Earth's climate? It's rain-in-the-Sahara-level messed up, apparently.
"As The Associated Press reports, a region of the Sahara Desert in southeastern #Morocco last month experienced a surprise deluge of #rainstorms, which has transformed some parts of the arid North African landscape into lake-filled oases.
"Rain is exceptionally uncommon in the Sahara, which is one of the driest places on the planet. It's especially uncommon during the late summer season.
"Per the AP, the Moroccan government reported that just two days of rain in September surpassed annual averages in areas that usually get less than ten inches of rain per year. One town called #Tagounite got nearly four inches in one day — an eye-popping amount of water for the drought-stricken region.
[...]
"According to the AP, Youabeb, and others are predicting that the unforeseen storms are likely to significantly alter the area's climate in the long term. That's because such a significant amount of rainfall in such a short period will add a consequential amount of water to the surrounding atmosphere."
5 reasons behind the historic absence of #TropicalStorms this #hurricane season
It has been the longest #stormless streak in the #AtlanticBasin in over 50 years, and AccuWeather meteorologists point to several factors that have put a temporary pause on the 2024 hurricane season.
By Brian Lada, AccuWeather meteorologist and senior content editor
Published Sep 6, 2024
"AccuWeather’s Jon Porter was live on the AccuWeather Network on Sept. 4 to discuss how quiet the last few weeks have been in the tropics.
"The first week of September is usually one of the busiest times of the year for tropical storms and hurricanes, but there is an eerie silence across the #AtlanticOcean.
"AccuWeather adjusted its hurricane forecast amid the historic lull, with 2024 being the first time in 56 years a new named storm has not developed between Aug. 13 and Sept. 3. If nothing develops by Sept. 11, it would become the longest streak without a named storm around peak hurricane season since at least the start of the satellite era in 1960.
"There are several reasons behind the lull, some more meteorologically complex than others.
Delayed arrival of #LaNiña
"A rapid collapse of #ElNiño was forecast to be swiftly replaced by La Niña, which, despite being linked to water temperatures near the equator of the Pacific Ocean, can have a major influence across the Atlantic Ocean. Typically, La Niña results in less disruptive winds, known as wind shear, making conditions prime for tropical development across the Atlantic.
"However, La Niña has yet to officially develop. 'In March, it appeared that a transition to La Niña would occur sometime in the early to middle portions of the summer. Now it looks like La Niña may not start until the fall and might end up rather weak,' AccuWeather Lead Hurricane Expert Alex DaSilva said.
Abundance of dry, dusty air
"Tropical storms and hurricanes need moisture-rich air to thrive, but such conditions have been scarce leading up to the peak of hurricane season. "There was an unusually high amount of dry air and #SaharanDust across the Atlantic during the month of August,' DaSilva said.
"The dry, dusty air is predicted to decrease in the coming weeks, leading to conditions more favorable for tropical development.
'Convoluted' African wave train
"During hurricane season, clusters of thunderstorms over Africa eventually emerge over the Atlantic Ocean. These become known as 'tropical waves,' and when conditions are right, they can strengthen into tropical storms and hurricanes. But as of late, the train of tropical waves emerging off the coast of Africa has been 'convoluted,' according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.
"Many thunderstorms in recent weeks have taken a rare path, drenching the #SaharaDesert. When the perspective tropical waves do emerge over the Atlantic Ocean, they are encountering too much dry air and wind shear and struggle to develop, Sosnowski said.
Stable upper atmosphere
"Another piece to the meteorological puzzle explaining the recent lull in tropical activity is the unusually warm conditions high in the atmosphere.
"'Temperatures in the upper atmosphere in the tropics have been well above average this year and above 2023 levels,' DaSilva said. Warm air high above the ocean can cause the atmosphere to be more stable, which makes it more difficult for thunderstorms to develop and organize into a tropical depression or storm. 'This could be tied to climate change and a warmer planet,' DaSilva added.
How does the rest of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season look?
"AccuWeather is predicting 16 to 20 named storms this season, lower than the initial forecast of 20 to 25 but still above the historical average of 14.
"'We don’t want anyone to let their guard down even though we are now forecasting fewer storms in total. We expect two to four more direct impacts to the United States this season. It only takes one powerful hurricane or slow-moving tropical storm to threaten lives and cause devastation,' AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter said.
The peak of the Atlantic hurricane season is Sept. 10, and it officially ends on Nov. 30."
Some slightly hypnotic Tuareg music for your day/night
• Surbajo, by Les Filles de Illighadad, led by Fatou Seidi Ghali who is perhaps the first Tuareg woman to play guitar professionally
@kevinrns Your interesting choice of words (Sahara-fication rather than Desertification) prompted me to do some research...
What Really Turned the #SaharaDesert From a Green Oasis Into a Wasteland?
10,000 years ago, this iconic desert was unrecognizable. A new hypothesis suggests that humans may have tipped the balance
by Lorraine Boissoneault
March 24, 2017
Excerpt: "'By overgrazing the grasses, they were reducing the amount of atmospheric moisture—plants give off moisture, which produces clouds—and enhancing albedo,' Wright said. He suggests this may have triggered the end of the humid period more abruptly than can be explained by the orbital changes. These nomadic humans also may have used fire as a land management tool, which would have exacerbated the speed at which the desert took hold.
"It’s important to note that the green Sahara always would’ve turned back into a desert even without humans doing anything—that’s just how Earth’s orbit works, says geologist Jessica Tierney, an associate professor of geoscience at the University of Arizona. Moreover, according to Tierney, we don’t necessarily need humans to explain the abruptness of the transition from green to desert.
"Instead, the culprits might be regular old vegetation feedbacks and changes in the amount of dust. 'At first you have this slow change in the Earth’s orbit,' Tierney explains. 'As that’s happening, the West African monsoon is going to get a little bit weaker. Slowly you’ll degrade the landscape, switching from desert to vegetation. And then at some point you pass the tipping point where change accelerates.'
"Tierney adds that it’s hard to know what triggered the cascade in the system, because everything is so closely intertwined. During the last humid period, the Sahara was filled with hunter-gatherers. As the orbit slowly changed and less rain fell, humans would have needed to domesticate animals, like cattle and goats, for sustenance. 'It could be the #climate was pushing people to herd cattle, or the #overgrazing practices accelerated denudation [of foliage],' Tierney says.
"Which came first? It’s hard to say with evidence we have now. “The question is: How do we test this hypothesis?” she says. 'How do we isolate the climatically driven changes from the role of humans? It’s a bit of a chicken and an egg problem.' Wright, too, cautions that right now we have evidence only for correlation, not causation.
"But Tierney is also intrigued by Wright’s research, and agrees with him that much more research needs to be done to answer these questions."
Full article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-really-turned-sahara-desert-green-oasis-wasteland-180962668/
https://archive.org/details/fuglestad-niger
A History of Niger 1850-1960 by Finn Fuglestad
Topics
#Niger, #historyofNiger, #Nigerienhistory, #Africanhistory, #historyofAfrica, #frenchcolonialism, #frenchimperialism, #colonialism, #imperialism, #antiblackness, #Sahel, #Saharadesert, #WestAfrica, #20thcentury, #19thcentury, #war, #revolt, #rebellion, #famine, #Hausaland, #Kanuriland, #Tuareg, #frenchcolonialWestAfrica
This comprehensive history of Niger during the colonial period is a work based on primary research which attempts an overall appraisal of the colonial past.
Dr Fuglestad questions the assumption that the colonial conquest constituted a clear break in African history. He traces the main trends of the colonial period back to their origins in the pre-colonial past. He also demonstrates that the power of colonial officials was less effective than is generally thought and that, though French colonial rule was the single most important factor in shaping the present-day societies of Niger, it was still only one of the many contributing factors.