The earth was actually cooling starting about 5000 years ago until whenever carbon emissions started having their effect ~100 years ago. Between 5,000 and 11,000 years ago the Sahara was green. I wonder if this is a little taste of what's to come.
One of these is a cyclical pattern of tens of thousands of years that caused warming and cooling somewhat less that a degree. For about six thousand years earth was half a degree warmer and weather patterns in the Sahara were different. Then there was some cooling until modern CO2 issues.
In the early twentieth century there were some very real concerns about long term climate cooling as climate science was being developed but instead greenhouse gases have blasted us very far and very fast in the other direction.
The Sahara's sand is actually full of a lot of nutrients. In fact the massive Saharan sandstorms that traverse the Atlantic Ocean are a significant source of fertilizer for the Amazon rainforest
All the elements are there. You just need the right weather and plant life to get things going.
Of course we can't ignore the human element. Archeological evidence suggests humans played a massive role in transitioning the Amazon Rainforest from the grassland it once was to the jungle it now is. Reforestation projects, Great Green Wall, half-moon berm projects, etc are all way way more effective than they were just a few years ago. We're learning a lot about how much humans can do to revitalize soils
The origin of the name is actually that Eric the Red called it that to attract settlers there. Just marketing, really.
There’s a 10,000 year period from the exit of the last ice age to about the year 0 where global temperatures were at least as warm as the 1960-1990 average. For a maybe 6000 year period within that global temperatures were about a half a degree or a little less warmer than that 1960-1990 average.
You’re just wrong. Before greenhouse gas emissions took control there’s a well recognized pattern of slow global cooling over a few thousand years.
Look at the graph https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/what’s-hott...