The Karoo (also: Karru) located in the central plateau “Highveld” in the southwest of South Africa is, just like the Kalahari, not a desert but a half desert. It forms the transition between full desert and steppe. With a surface of more than 500,000 km², the Karoo takes up nearly a third of the country.

The climatic border between summer rain and winter rain areas runs through the middle of southwest Africa. This causes a separation of the flora. We differentiate between the “succulents Karoo” in the south, an area with winter rains, and the “Nama Karoo” with summer rains, located in the southeast. The mountain ranges of the peripheral mountains surround the steppe. The humid rains from the sea come down on the luffing sides of the mountain slopes, so that the country behind the mountains only receives precipitation below 500 mm per year. In the desert-like northeast the precipitation is lower than 200 mm. While the maximum day temperature in the summer regularly exceeds 40° C, the winters can be very cold.

The Karoo is well-known for a variety of succulents.

Due to climatic changes, large parts of southern Africa threaten to become a desert similar to the Sahara. British researchers warn of desertification by erosion of the Kalahari dunes as a consequence of the global warming. Additionally, the fight against air pollution seems to speed up the warming. Dust particles, known as aerosols, block a part of the sunshine in the atmosphere. Climatic researchers of the British University of Oxford use knowledge about humidity trends and the quantity of plants (that are needed to keep the soil together) for research in the Kalahari Basin.

Therefore, they measured the temperature increase and its influence on the rainfalls in this area. The result was alarming: The desert will continue to expand from 2039 onwards, and by 2099, the dunes might decompose gradually due to the decreasing humidity, and they will be carried off by the wind.