Ice covering the world’s largest hot desert-Sahara desert is indeed a rare sight. The desert, however, is much likely to see ice at higher altitudes.
Sahara recently woke up to this rare sight of ice frost on January 19, 2021. In northwestern Algeria, sand dunes can be seen streaked with ice crystals.
Sahara desert is the largest hot desert in the world. Outside the town of Ain Sefra, the unusual weather change is nothing unusual.
Ain Sefra is surrounded by Atlas mountains, near the Algerian-Moroccan border. While the summer temperatures generally soar above 38 degrees celsius.
On the other hand, scientists say that ice accumulation is not a new phenomenon in Sahara desert. As these ice dusting marks appeared for the fourth time in about 50 years.
Not only this year but 1979, 2016, 2018 also recorded such occurrences. Furthermore those past years’ snowfall were heavier than this years’.
As a result, the rare sight is now available on internet and social media. Ain Sefra is gateway to the Sahara desert.
But the warming temperatures soon melted the ice within a day. NASA has posted the beautiful pictures, using the Landsat data from US.
(Picture Credit: Karim Bouchetata from Twitter)
