Up to 16 inches of snow has fallen on a town in the Sahara desert after a freak winter storm hit the area on Sunday.
This is the third time in 37 years that the town of Ain Sefra in Algeria has seen snow cover the red sand dunes of the desert.
Snow started falling in the early hours of Sunday morning Jan 7 and it quickly began settling on the sand.
Does this mean global warming is ending and the beginning phases of the next Ice Age has started?
No, not necessary, but it is a consequence of increased water vapor in the atmosphere. You see, in the tropics it is all regulated by the cumulus clouds and thunderstorms and the temperature of the oceans. If the oceans heat up ever so little, they release more water vapor into the atmosphere, and the amount of CO2 is of no consequence. All greenhouse warming is done by the water vapor, since you cannot absorb more than all energy available in the frequency band of absorption of the gas, and since in the tropics water vapor is counted in percent rather than parts per million as is the case of CO2. As the water vapor increases, clouds form and act as a strong negative feedback to keep the temperature stable in the tropics.
Not so at the poles. On Greenland and on the Arctic ice cap it snows more, and the increased water vapor leads to more storms coming up the Pacific and up the Atlantic. Some of them swirls back into Africa leading to these rare snowfalls.
If it were not for the increased CO2, we would already be back into a new little ice age, but thanks to increased generation of CO2 the onset of the next ice age will be delayed by maybe a thousand years.
Another good thing with more snow at the poles. The poles are getting warmer, and this leads to a smaller temperature difference between hot and cold regions, making for weaker storms, fewer tornadoes and hurricanes, less violent rains spreading over larger regions, all good.
The snow comes earlier and earlier, but it also melts earlier. Blame China for that. They already use 47% of the world’s mined coal, and does not do a good job of cleaning up the exhaust gases despite their claims.
Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment. 