Talk:Sahara pump theory

Unreliable source
Here is a recent archaeological discovery http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26841410 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.104.199.230 (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Suggested fusion
The Sahara Pump Theory and North African Climatic Cycles could possibly benefit from a fusion. They seem to refer to similar content.John D. Croft (talk) 15:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Reference to broken DOI
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 * Martin  (Smith609 – Talk)  01:33, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Lack of clarity
I reckon to be able to follow popular science articles, but this entry had me beat.

It needs re-organising to make it more coherent, starting with an explanation of why this theory is called the Sahara "pump", and then explaining whether this is a one-off event as seems implied by the first paragraph,

"Regardless of the aridity of the greater Sahara, migration along the river corridor was halted when, during a desert phase 1.8-0.8 million years ago (Ma), the Nile ceased to flow completely[2] and possibly flowed only temporarily in other periods[3] due to Nubian Swell uplift."

or a repeating one, as in the second section:

"During periods of a wet or "Green Sahara", the Sahara and Arabia become a savannah grassland"

On re-reading, perhaps the best answer would to put this section labelled "Mechanism" as the first "summary" section, as it seems rather clearer than the existing bit.

I'm not inclined to try changing it myself, as I'm definitely not a historical climatologist, but if this article is intended to be read by general readers, or those with some historical but no scientific training, then it needs:

a summary passage/definition section at the beginning

a little less of those terms which will only be understood by those with a text book to hand.

fewer casual references to "Nubian Swell Uplift" may be useful to geology (??) undergraduates, but not to the rest of us - at least in the top section. lists of animals are probably excessive at this level of detail, given that the point of the article is - presumably - the scientific event. As a general point should Wiki as a whole settle for the Ka/Ma system or the BP system, rather than mixing them?

Jorvikian (talk) 11:38, 28 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It would be good to find a source that explains how these changes in the Sahara could act as a pump. Kortoso (talk) 23:04, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Hypothesis?
In the intro, it is stated that we are dealing with a hypothesis; yet in the rest of the article it is treated as though it were a universally accepted theory. I am puzzled as to how certain this is - is there evidence for or against it? Has there been criticism of the hypothesis? Nikolaj1905 (talk) 19:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

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