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/sci/ - Science & Math

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File: 38 KB, 600x400, namib_desert_pictures.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3542962 No.3542962 [Reply] [Original]

Can't we just dump shitloads of sea water into the deserts to stop desertification? Sure they may turn into salt plains, but at least there will be rain and minerals for plants.

>> No.3542978

Just shoot the goat herders and ineffectual farmers.

>> No.3542987

>>3542962
Give this man a PhD from University of /sci/ence.

>> No.3542998

Why sea water and not ocean water?

>> No.3543012

Why not create water pipelines akin to water pipelines and deluge parts of the desert? Put desalination plants along the way and you've got jobs and new viable farmlands.

Hell, given droughts in the US, we could stand that here.

>> No.3543020

>>3543012

move out of the fucking desert! I live near a river.. there is always water in it. ALWAYS

>> No.3543039

>>3543012
it takes energy. If we figured out a way to do that, then green deserts here we come. the whole shit could look like an oasis

>> No.3543043

>>3543012
>water pipelines akin to water pipelines

Let's not go too crazy, now.

>> No.3543074

>>3543039
Goddamn energy, it's always the problem. I guess it's just not enough of a priority, then. Shame though.

>> No.3543086

>>3543012
>water pipelines akin to water pipelines
did you mean akin to aqueducts?

>> No.3543092

>>3543043
Ahah, oil, my bad.

But hey, with food prices on the rise, I wonder what the threshold is for doing this kind of thing.

Maybe I'm a fucking idiot, but I think it'd make a neat massive public works project.

>> No.3543136

>>3543092
Food production isn't a problem, it's the distribution, we could feed the world twice over if we wanted to. We just don't want to. Current food prices increases are related to speculation, the relative value drop of the dollar opposed to other currencies and the subsequent price increase of oil to compensate that.

You'd be better off drilling wells, moving populations and managing farming methods, because irrigating the desert on such a large scale would be far more inefficient. Still a large undertaking, but not as cool.

>> No.3543140

>>3543092
More like it will make a neat terraforming experiment project. Humanity's very first.

>> No.3543150
File: 27 KB, 250x250, asand.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3543150

Most sand in the desert is hydrophobic, it means it can't absorb water, and for water one desert you could empty a sea.

>> No.3543158

>>3543150
Huh. Why is that so ?

>> No.3543164

>>3543150
Hydrophobic? Why would sand be afraid of water?

>> No.3543166

>>3543136
Problem with drilling wells in the desert is that when they go dry, they don't replenish. (At least not at any useful pace.)

>>3543140
That too!

>> No.3543167

>>3543164
It's a bit cowardly like that.

>> No.3543174

>>3543164
The desert isn't used to being around water.

>> No.3543178

>>3543150
... Hydrophobic sand is man made? I think someone fibbed to you.

>> No.3543185

>>3543174
North African deserts used to be underwater.

>> No.3543189

>>3543185
>Didn't get the joke

>> No.3543194

>>3543185
It left on bad terms, now they just can't get back together again.

>> No.3543302

it costs 50 cents to desalinate a cubic meter of water. that is about 250 gallons.

plants usually prefer an equal part sand silt and clay to grow. We would need to either import a lot of soil as well. Or spend the first 10 years growing and burning plants to change the soil.

Once there is sufficient carbon and water in the soil. The area should start producing more rain. Decreasing the needs of importing water. Also to decrease the initial water costs. There are several plants that grow both in a high sand soil, and a high salt environment.

>> No.3543315

Sure, why not? Anything to stop the rising sea levels is fine with me.

>> No.3543331
File: 3 KB, 84x126, grim 294463.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3543331

Ready for my bullshit?

Scientists established that the Earth shifted its axis by less than a degree several thousand year ago starting a downhill tumble for the Sahara rainforest. It shifted the weather patterns driving less and less rain to the region.

The sahara was largely vast grass lands and on the top coast of Africa was cedar forests. What happened to all of that? Rome, Greece and Egypt needed the lumber for construction and fuel for cooking and firing limestone to make plaster.

Today, and thousands of years ago those cedar forests are gone, and the destruction of those forests caused massive erosion. It became so arid and the soil so sandy and infertile that the permanent, nearly lifeless desert arose.
Today the land is so dry and sandy that when it does rain, the water never reaches the water table and evaporates almost instantly. The super heated sand also prevents the proper conditions for rainstorms to occur in the first place.

tl;dr The Sahara desert is largely manmade. We fucked it up.

>> No.3543338

Why don't we get a giant lens and send it into space

Focus sunlight on the sahara desert

Turn the entire desert into molten glass

Bring in water to cool

Price of glass drops and africas economy is restarted

>> No.3543343
File: 2 KB, 126x95, 1275766713972s.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3543343

>>3543338
Fucking fund it.

This man is on to something

>> No.3543349

Aren't they gonna build solar panels across the Sahara desert?

>> No.3543369

>getting rid of deserts.

But i think deserts are beautiful. I can't explain why in the sense that each person sees beauty differently.
But I'd love to go sit on a sand dune and look out over a desert.

Putting my own desires aside, you'd have to find a way to effectively do it that wouldn't waste more energy than would be beneficial.

>> No.3544008

>>3543331
let us not forget, prior to saddam hussein's reign (enabled by the us) baghdad was a jungle.

>> No.3544011

You need to change the underlying dynamics that made it a desert in the first place, or you'll be dumping water forever.

>> No.3544020

they're too high up, the water keeps draining out faster than we could ever possibly fill it

>> No.3544036

We might be able to build a canal to sections of desert below sea level like the Qattarra depression but that's it.

>> No.3544093

ram pumps might work
what good they would do it up for debate