It seems pretty counter-intuitive to me. Firstly, flooding deserts to create either lakes or vegetation would generally reduce albedo (darken), leading to more solar energy being absorbed, and hence causing temperatures to rise.
Secondly, water vapour is a powerful greenhouse gas, and thus increasing its concentration in the atmosphere will cause further net forcing. Thirdly, desert areas predominantly exist in areas of downwelling air. Therefore, the creation of large cloud systems with high albedo over these regions would be unlikely. This is in contrast to tropical forests, which create large clouds through evapotranspiration into rising air. It seems that this approach would not have any immediate climate benefits. It may, however, be a good way to cultivate deserts - although I suspect the maintenance costs, constructions costs and ever-present salinity problem would make it unattractive. Look at the Aral sea region as an example of the difficulties in cultivating in brackish water. A 2009/6/7 Ken Caldeira <kcalde...@dge.stanford.edu> > Folks, > > I ran across this pdf recommending the benefits of flooding sub sea-level > desert areas. > > I believe the author of this document (cc'd) would enjoy your comments. > > Best, > > Ken > > > ___________________________________________________ > Ken Caldeira > > Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology > 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA > > kcalde...@ciw.edu; kcalde...@stanford.edu > http://dge.stanford.edu/DGE/CIWDGE/labs/caldeiralab > +1 650 704 7212; fax: +1 650 462 5968 > > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
