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The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh). The climate is typically hot, sunny, dry and somewhat windy all year long. The Sahel's climate is similar to, but less extreme than, the climate of the Sahara desert located just to the north. The Sahel mainly receives a low to very low amount of precipitation annually.
Climate zones of Africa, showing the ecological break between the Sahara Desert (red), the hot semi-arid climate of the Sahel (orange) and the tropical climate of Central and Western Africa (blue). Southern Africa has a transition to subtropical and temperate climates (green and yellow), and more desert or semi-arid regions, centered on Namibia ...
The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification BWh and BWk) is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert climates are dry and hold little moisture, quickly evaporating the already little rainfall they receive.
Meanwhile, the Sahel region south of the Sahara was mostly savanna. [18] Today the Sahara region is mostly desert and the Sahel is characterized by savannah grasslands conditions. The African Humid Period was also characterized by a network of vast waterways in the Sahara, consisting of large lakes, rivers, and deltas.
The Sahel extends across all of Africa at a latitude of about 10° to 15° N. Countries that include parts of the Sahara Desert proper in their northern territories and parts of the Sahel in their southern region include Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and Sudan. The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate.
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-arid climates, depending on variables such as temperature, and they give rise to different biomes.
Sahel region of Mali. The climate of the Sahara has undergone enormous variations over the last few hundred thousand years, [49] oscillating between wet (grassland) and dry (desert) every 20,000 years [50] (a phenomenon believed to be caused by long-term changes in the North African climate cycle that alters the path of the North African ...
The climate in this transition zone between the desert and the southern sudanian zone is divided into a rainy season (from June to September) and a dry period (from October to May). [6] In the northern Sahel, thorny shrubs and acacia trees grow wild, while date palms, cereals, and garden crops are raised in scattered oases. [6]