Geologist
Dr. Stefan Kröpelin
has studied
the Sahara desert
for over 40 years,
spending weeks
to months
on site each year,
gathering data
to reconstruct
the past climate.
Nature described Kröpelin as:
“one of the most devoted
Sahara explorers of our time.”
In April 2019, during a
podcast interview with
prominent Sahara Desert
researchers, geologist
Dr. Stefan Kröpelin,
shocked the sponsor,
Düsseldorf-based
German daily,
Rheinische Post (RP).
The two RP hosts had
expected Dr. Kröpelin
to warn the audience
about man-made
global warming's
negative effect on
he Sahara Desert,
and the planet overall.
But Dr. Kröpelin
rejected claims
of a major climate
change impact,
and the belief that
global warming
must be bad news.
Kröpelin told listeners
when the globe is cold,
the deserts expand.
When the globe is warm,
deserts become greener,
and far more fruitful.
He said the Sahara desert
was massive in the last
glacial period.
But about ten thousand
years ago it greened up,
once temperatures shot up
in the Holocene Optimum.
When asked if the Sahara
“will get much worse”
due to climate change,
Kröpelin said
“First, that is a statement
I 100% rejected”.
He said localized
desertification
is related to
population growth
at the edges
of the desert.
People who live there
are cutting down trees,
and extracting water
from the ground.
Kröpelin talked about
remote edges of the Sahara
where few people live:
“Here we signs that
precipitation is increasing
and that should the trend
continue, the desert
is going to shrink.”
“The Sahara changed
from a desert to a savannah.
These are not
model simulations.”
This is ” based 100%”
on real observations,
of a wide variety
of proxy data,
taken throughout
the region.
The greening of the Sahara
“happened not because
it got colder, but because
it got warmer."
Kröpelin also shocked
the host by claiming
that even if the climate
models were true,
which he says
he doesn’t believe,
“Maybe one third of
the African continent
will be a livable zone again.
That would be
an unbelievable
advantage for
the people in
Sub-Saharan Africa. ...
I dispute that
over the last decades
there’s been a
climatically controlled
increase of the desert.”
Kröpelin says
human migrations
due to climate changes
have always occurred.
Past sea level changes
simply caused
people to move.
Although today,
there would be
infrastructure
that people
could not take
with them.
“There’s never been
a really stable climate.”
Kröpelin downplayed
today's sea level changes.
He said the average
depth of the ocean
is 4,000 meters, noting:
“What’s a one meter change,
from 4,000 meters of sea depth ?”
Climate change
is “totally exaggerated”
When asked about
the climate protests,
Kröpelin comments:
“I would say that today’s
handling of climate change
is hysterical”
and that
“we should not be dramatizing.”
The University of Cologne
expert geologist says
by only looking at
the last few decades,
“We can naturally create panic.
But I find it totally exaggerated.”
Kröpelin said the claim
that global warming
is all bad “isn’t true” .
“The real catastrophe
would be a dramatic drop
in global temperature”
and that
“warming is the
least of our problems.”
He added:
“Climate change
is totally exaggerated.”
He sharply criticized
the Potsdam Institute
for Climate Impact
Research (PIK) for
“painting doomsday
scenarios”
and said the topic
has been heated up
by politics.