Article: Sahara to get hotter, drier, smaller.(Brief Article)

By the end of this century, the world's hottest desert will be even hotter. The Sahara will also be smaller and drier than it is now, according to an international team of climate modelers.

The Sahara stretches the full width of northern Africa and now covers an area the size of the United States. But that area isn't constant: It can swell and shrink significantly in response to long-term weather patterns, says Gerald A. Meehl, a climate modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. For example, an extended drought along the southern boundary of the desert in the 1970s led to its expansion there in the 1980s.

Overall, the ...

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