Once we discuss deserts, we actually first consider the Sahara. Sure, that is the most important desert on our planet, but it surely seems that our continent additionally has a desert, though just a little totally different from most.
Iceland is an island nation within the northern a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s well-known for each the northern lights and its quite a few volcanoes. And, it seems, it’s there that the most important and most energetic desert in Europe is situated.
Over 44 thousand sq. km. of sandy deserts with energetic processes happening in them. They’re composed not of sand like that within the Sahara, however of black, which is of basaltic origin, with giant impurities of volcanic glass. This sand, which covers the huge surfaces, comes from glacial-river deposits and volcanic eruptions, but in addition from the collapse of sedimentary rocks.
This huge space of Iceland, which at the moment has a desert character, was forested centuries in the past. The nation has lengthy been experiencing a course of that the UN calls “desertification.” It’s the transformation of areas with lush vegetation into sandy landscapes resulting from local weather change. And the group believes that that is “among the many best environmental challenges of our time.”
So, at the moment’s desert areas had been birch forests when the Vikings settled on the island. Through the years, the panorama has continued to deteriorate resulting from improper land administration, and at the moment solely 2% of Iceland’s territory is roofed in forests. Insurance policies at the moment are being applied to double this share by 2050.
In the meantime, the desert areas of the island nation, lined in black sand, have an effect on the local weather of the whole continent. We regularly hear about winds that carry Saharan sand from hundreds of kilometers away. However it’s not unusual for them to additionally carry Icelandic sand. Proof of its presence has even been present in samples taken in Serbia, Euronews writes.
Mud storms, with this “high-latitude mud”, attain totally different components of continental Europe. And it seems that they impact the local weather as a result of they’re darkish and take up daylight, which ends up in warming of the earth’s floor and air. And when this black sand types a layer, even only a centimeter thick, on glaciers, it results in their melting. As well as, it’s a severe air pollutant, which additionally performs the function of a reason for local weather change, particularly in areas with glaciers. Below the melted ice blocks there’s an “limitless supply of mud”, which makes the warming processes actually tough to manage. And all of us see the outcomes of them.
Illustrative Picture by Adrien Olichon: https://www.pexels.com/picture/black-and-white-photography-of-sand-2387819/
