While global warming is causing panic in the United States, the rising temperatures could benefit millions of Africans in one of the driest places in the world.

This desert-shrinking trend is supported by climate models, which predict a return to conditions that turned the Sahara into a lush savanna some 12,000 years ago.

Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.

The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan.

“The transition may be occurring because hotter air has more capacity to hold moisture, which in turn creates more rain,” said Martin Claussen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany.

Read more from National Geographic.

“Observations show that warming of the climate system is now unequivocal. The global warming observed over the past 50 years is due primarily
to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.”  Key findings:

1. Global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.

2. Climate changes are underway in the United States and are projected to grow.

3. Widespread climate-related impacts are occurring now and are expected to increase.

4. Climate change will stress water resources.

5. Crop and livestock production will be increasingly challenged.

6. Coastal areas are at increasing risk from sea-level rise and storm surge.

7. Threats to human health will increase.

8. Climate change will interact with many social and environmental stresses.

9. Rapid, irreversible, and unanticipated changes are likely as a result of crossing key thresholds.

10. Future climate change and its impacts depend on choices made today.

Download report here

Read John Broder’s piece in the NY Times.