Terraforming the Earthâ€™s great Deserts - Turning the Sahara into a rainforest.

REB · 2004-06-01 10:49:48

I am not advocating turning all of earth’s deserts into forest or farmland (I love the deserts too, especially at dusk), but rather reverse man-made desertification and the larger deserts, like the Sahara. The Sarah is a harsh environment for life. There is life there, but it is sparse when compared to the rest of the globe. (This reminds me of the argument whether to terraform Mars if spare microbe life is found there.)

This United States size desert could add more habitable land to the Earth if it was turned into farmland and/or forest. I have also read that the Sahara is growing. We should at least try to reverse this growth, if possible.

smurf975 · 2004-06-01 11:21:04

I agree with REB and want to add the following.

A lot of todays farmland is not natural and we can't go by without them. For instance the hooverdam allowed farming in its states. In the netherlands the "polders" were swamps (like the everglades) that were and still are pumped of all excess water. Also all those dykes arround the world rivers (canalization) make humans safer but stop the natural overflooding of rivers and create with that a biodiverse river side swamps. And you know building cities also destroys that natures habitat. I'm sure you can think of other examples when people stopped natures natural flow for the sake of humans.

I'm not saying that we should be going crazy and make a big concrete and farm planet with no wild nature at all. I'm saying that at this moment of time farms can sustain people it only needs to be devided better. But in the future when population grow and that growth will mostly happen in poor countries that already import a lot of food from the US and Europe. So in future with a bigger Earth population and especially in poor countries there will be a big problem. And then you will have to ask your self. Do I like deserts more then people or if you say that you prefer deserts, then I will have to awnser that those poor nations should have the right to sustain their own food needs.

And about the deserts some were already populated by humans before. The one in China had some old civilization on the silk route that went dead when the water dried up and the silk route wasn't needed anymore.

North Africa used to have forrests during the Roman era however due to population increase and war (destroying of enemies hunting grounds) they dissapeard.

The sahara is also growing due to human influences. People cut trees and or bushes for fire wood, those same plants used to keep the sand at it's place with their roots and keep some moisture in the ground.

Another example is lake Chad in Chad that is shrinking and getting saltier due to bad use of the water and not enough water filling it in again. A big lake in Russia (forgot name) has the same problem.

Conclusion a lot of deserts are dryer and growing due to small scale human influences over the centeries. Pumping water in them would be restoring them to their natural state.

Last thing, I think the deserts in the US don't need to be turned into farms. But you could build towns in them when supplying enough of water (like Las Vegas). I think this as the US produces enough food already as its able to export a lot of it.

MarsDog · 2004-06-02 12:47:53

As temperatures rise, US keeps getting dryer. Fortunately, it won't go the way of the Silk Route; Canada is designing its waterwork levels to feed into the US. When warmth meets water there are easy possibilities.
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For the Sahara, there is no fresh water awailable. You can't bring water to the sand, so bring the sand to the water.

smurf975 · 2004-06-02 13:09:47

As temperatures rise, US keeps getting dryer. Fortunately, it won't go the way of the Silk Route; Canada is designing its waterwork levels to feed into the US. When warmth meets water there are easy possibilities.
-
For the Sahara, there is no fresh water awailable. You can't bring water to the sand, so bring the sand to the water.

Isn't the US really getting dryer due to pumping groundwater and underground rivers to houses that mostly use them for washing their cars and watering the garden? Or using that water for high volume water using factories that then just pump the used water into a river which then ends in the sea?

I think the US could also use some better water reclycing schemes.

MarsDog · 2004-06-02 13:50:52

Extreme water conservation methods were tried,
but the Silk Route still dried out.
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The weather kept getting warmer after the Ice Age, and it is still getting warmer.
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US could do better, but how would you make US deserts agriculturally productive, or make a Rain Forest ?

smurf975 · 2004-06-02 14:39:04

Extreme water conservation methods were tried,
but the Silk Route still dried out.
-
The weather kept getting warmer after the Ice Age, and it is still getting warmer.
-
US could do better, but how would you make US deserts agriculturally productive, or make a Rain Forest ?

First I don't think that that the US deserts needs to be agriculturally productive. As the US at this moment doesn't need new farmland as it can feed its people and many other countries peoples.

If the US population should grow then they should export less food. Let the foreign countries destroy their nature first (nature reserves are still important and a symbol of the country), the US is not obliged to feed the world. However it can show the rest of the world how to produce more effectively. (Export the knowledge and make some money out of it.)

You know I live in the Netherlands and most of the year we have too much water. But in the summer the local governments ask people to water less their gardens and conserve water in general. That’s weird isn't it? We are normally pumping water out or building higher dykes to handle the excess water.

I think it's ridiculous as they the government should just create big water basins for the excess water that flows down the rivers in the non-summer seasons. Then in the summer you could use water from those basins to handle the shortage. And those basins would act as nature reserves and be nice for sport fishers and bird watcher.

I’m sure you have in the US also regions that suffer from regional flooding dangers. And in other regions have water shortages. I say use that excess water for backup in low water periods.

And I say only mess with nature if it’s needed. India and China have growing populations and China is already importing food from the US and will more in the future. But at some point the US will or can’t export more food. Should the US destroy its nature to feed other countries? Or should the other countries destroy their nature to feed their people?

And I recognize that some regions drying up is due to the end of the Ice Age. So it’s a natural process. I saw once this documentary about African Elephants. They tend to bring down the trees that grow on the savannah. In that documentary they said that the theory behind this is that the elephants prefer to eat grass and destroying the trees so more grass will grow and stop a forest from forming. This is also a natural process. So maybe bringing water to the deserts by human (bi pedal animals) is also a natural process?

You ask me how to make the American deserts into forests? Well just pump seawater* or any excess river water (just take it just before it hits the Ocean / Sea) to a great basin. I think you have many natural basins in the US, which are dried up lakes. However the costs are great but the benefits can also be great on the long term, as the Hoover dam has proven.

*There are many methods of removing salt from seawater.

X · 2007-05-03 21:49:37

Isn't the US really getting dryer due to pumping groundwater and underground rivers to houses that mostly use them for washing their cars and watering the garden? Or using that water for high volume water using factories that then just pump the used water into a river which then ends in the sea?

Parts are. The aquifer under the Front Range area in Colorado was being drained at about 1% a year according to National Geographic, and that was the late 90s/early 00s. Already the ranchers who by the local water laws have first crack at the water are being hurt by the suburbs using the water.

I think the main thing if you want to maintain living in the desert without a huge terraforming type project is to live more in line with the surrounding area. Don't plant your yard with foreign grasses, and that sort of thing. Of course you can't get folks to do this even in areas that have native grasses so I'm not holding out hope for some place in the American Southwest.

The Sahara is really stuck. You can't make a happy equilibrium without radically changing things. These massive irrigation plans sound very cool, but the probelm with lowering sea level and flooding such a huge area is twofold. First nations are going to argue over this new land you've made. Second what if one of these Sahara nations doesn't like the idea of a lot of their land getting flooded when they don't get the exclusive benefit of it?

RickSmith · 2007-05-09 00:03:59

Because of the way the air circulates there are regions about 15 degrees off the equator that get little rain fall. However the Sahara got enough rain to support grasslands and farms until over grazing caused massive desertfication.

With massive efforts we might be able to get that grassland back but I doubt that the Sahara will ever become a rain forest. (At least not until it moves to a different latitude via plate tectonics.)

Sadly it is far easier to grow deserts than to shrink them.

Warm regards, Rick.

Number04 · 2007-05-09 10:11:45

Occupying some 3.5m square miles of northern Africa, the Sahara desert is expected to shrink with global warming as more plentiful rain brings a flourish of vegetation to its southernmost reaches.

Mother nature might be doing it for us

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/ … 73,00.html

X · 2007-06-17 19:07:27

Any thoughts on what effect turning the Sahara into a mixture of lakes, grassland, forest, and agriculture would have on earth's albedo?

Martian Republic · 2007-06-18 18:27:26

Any thoughts on what effect turning the Sahara into a mixture of lakes, grassland, forest, and agriculture would have on earth's albedo?

It would probably lower the temperature overall of the Earth. It would definitely lower the temperature of Africa and most of the souther Europe and southwestern Asia. We would have a lot of evaporation that would remove heat from the Earth and ultimately radiate it back into space when the water in the clouds. It also might modulate the temperature from swinging from very high temperature to very low temperatures.

This is only a guess and I doubt that anybody really knows. But, it fun to speculate as to what would happen.

Larry,

StarDreamer · 2007-06-18 20:44:53

Any thoughts on what effect turning the Sahara into a mixture of lakes, grassland, forest, and agriculture would have on earth's albedo?

The greening of the Sahara would create a new ecological carbon sink to take CO2 out of the atmosphere, thereby lowering overall temperature. The greenery would also hold a lot of water, but I have no idea how much.

RobertDyck · 2007-06-18 21:20:38

As temperatures rise, US keeps getting dryer. Fortunately, it won't go the way of the Silk Route; Canada is designing its waterwork levels to feed into the US. When warmth meets water there are easy possibilities.

Um, no it's not. It is Canadian policy that water will never, ever, EVER be exported to the United States.

We have a problem with pressure for Canada to become a third world country: our manufacturing businesses are being bought out, and foreign buyers are dismantling our factories to import goods from their country. Companies bought by foreign owners have their head offices moved to the new owner's country, together with high paying jobs like executives, architects, engineers, etc. Only low paying, low skill jobs are left. This trend has to stop. On top of that, water feeds our agriculture. If entire rivers were diverted to the United States then prarie would dry into savanah or desert, orchards would die, etc. Part of the dispute over softwood lumber is that Canada built lumber mills. The U.S. used to buy logs from Canada, saw them into lumber then export finished lumber back into Canada. Now that we process our own lumber and actually export finished lumber to the U.S., those who want to exploit Canada are frustrated. So now there are Americans who want to kill our forests by depriving them of water. Not going to happen.

SpaceNut · 2007-06-18 21:29:42

Personally I do not want the situation for you to get worse in that water would be deverted from your streams and lakes for it should not.

As for the loss of industry I too know the pain that it can cause as each sector of what was a thriving way to amke a living seems to disappear until you are left with only low paying part time employment usually in stores or fast food resturants.

I still have saw mills in the area that cut and proces logs still but I can see that happening decades to century possible from now when the land is more valueable to live on than to grow trees. This of course is due to cities and there expansion. It seems so inevitable as the grow of population continues.

RobertDyck · 2007-06-18 21:40:52

all those dykes arround the world rivers (canalization) make humans safer but stop the natural overflooding of rivers and create with that a biodiverse river side swamps.

It also depleats soil nutrients and washes land into the ocean. In nature, floods wash top soil from up river to down, where flooded land gets a fresh deposit of silt. That silt is a rich fertilizer, and ensures land doesn't move too far. Levees (dykes along rivers) keeps flooding rivers moving fast and prevents deposition of that silt. So top soil washes out into the ocean, making up-stream land lower as well as depriving it of top soil.

Here in Manitoba we have a different system. The city of Winnipeg has a floodway, a big water channel that directs excess river flow around the city during a flood. We also have ring dykes around small towns in southern Manitoba. Farms have a ring dyke around their house and yard, including their barn, garage for heavy equipment, and grain bins. North Dakota uses levees, and the river is the same one. When the Red River flooded in 1997 the levees overflowed but the floodway held. Some of the ring dykes held, others didn't. Farm land was flooded, but it just became that much more fertile once the flood subsided. Think of it this way, if you get a flood due to rapidly melting snow and there's so many more inches of snow than usual all melting at once, and the run-off is from all of North Dakota, South Dakota, a bit of eastern Montana and western Minnesota, how much will all that raise the level of a narrow river channel? Now think what a couple inches of snow does to all the land of southern Manitoba. Which system provides the most protection?

Conclusion: protect cities, towns, and farm buildings; not fields.

RobertDyck · 2007-06-19 08:20:10

The title of this thread is "Terraforming the Earth's great Deserts - Turning the Sahara into a rainforest." There is some history you have to be aware of.

Following each ice age, the Sahara became a lush rain forest. There are deep river beds, entire river systems carved into bedrock. Radar from satellites look right through the sand to bedrock, the channels have been mapped. When the planet is still cool and glaciers still exist in the north, the Sahara has the lush fertility that you hope for. It happens at the end of every ice age; predictable and consistent. As the planet warms further and glaciers recede, the Sahara dries to become a desert. As the planet warms still more as it comes out of the ice age, the Sahara grows. At the height of interglacial periods, the Sahara always grows much larger than it is today. Expansion of the Sahara is natural, part of the interglacial cycle. Reversing desertification to the point of the beginning of the interglacial period, and doing so for something as big as the Sahara, will be very difficult. You're fighting nature.

On the other side, you don't need to do anything fancy with soil. The reason North Africa became desert sand was lack of rain. If you increase rain it will become rainforest again. You may have to start with pioneer plants like grass until soil is rebuilt, but grass roots will hold sand and soil so it doesn't blow around in dunes. It will always be sandy soil, converting minerals into clay takes a very long time, on the order of a couple million years, so don't expect clay soil. However, carbon fixing plants can create organic compounds out of CO2 and N2 from the air and H2O from water. It happens naturally at the end of every ice age.

m1omg · 2007-07-03 11:19:23

You will disrupt the Earth natural regulation systems.There are a lot of desert organisms and you will kill them.You will destroy one habitat.
Anyone ever tought about this?

noosfractal · 2007-07-03 16:22:24

You will disrupt the Earth natural regulation systems.There are a lot of desert organisms and you will kill them.You will destroy one habitat.
Anyone ever tought about this?

Hi m1omg, welcome to New Mars.

I think you would have a heavy burden of proof to show that reversing desertification was harmful.

StarDreamer · 2007-07-04 10:07:19

Human industry has initiated two contrary processes in our climate. One is global warming from production of greenhouse gasses. The other is global dimming from the spread of aerosol particulate matter (soots) which reduce insolation at the surface. We have all heard a lot about global warming, so let's explore the global dimming problem.

Global dimming was first noticed in the 1950s and 1960s. Soot blocks out the Sun and, while it may increase heat in the atmosphere (soot is dark), atmosphere is a poor retainer of that heat over time (compared to the rocks at surface or the heatsink of the oceans). It also frustrates the condensation of raindrops out of vapour by attracting condensation to the soot surfaces, but at a density too low to precipitate. The result is more cloud cover but less rain. This increases overall albedo, thus reducing temperatures, and blots out more sunlight, thus further reducing insolation. But it also spawns droughts and famines, such as what has been seen in Ethiopia and Somalia and across the Sahel, in California and in North Korea. The height of these famines in the 1980s and 1990s coincided with the height of global dimming. Mount Pinatubo did not help much either.

There is evidence that global dimming has turned a corner and reversed. The collapse of dirty industries in the East Bloc (Poland, Romania, Russia) has reduced airborne pollutants considerably. So long as China does not become too dirty in its turn, global dimming should remain on the wane.

But this shall also further expose the problem of global warming because now insolation is on the rise with the greenhouse gasses. But increased evaporation will bring increased rainfall, so long as the airborne soot does not frustrate droplet formation.

I wonder if the desert zone shall move north into Europe and the Sahara shall bloom again? If increased rainfall does bring about a greener Earth and not just erosion, then an enlarged biosphere shall hold more water. Just think if the Sahara were forested, how much carbon and how much water that would take out of the system and contribute to restoring equilbrium! If human activity is accelerating the carbon cycle and forcing carbon back into circulation at an unnatural pace (by digging it up and burning it) then the best response of the planet Gaia would be to meet our efforts by increasing those processes which take carbon out of the system -- namely plant growth.

By the way, there is some evidence that what prompted the current cycle of Ice Ages was the closing of the isthmus of Panama. Those mountains of central america isolated the Pacific from the Atlantic and reduced the flow of the Great Conveyor Belt (Gulf Stream), thereby making it more vulnerable to Arctic meltwater. If we ever lurch towards a new Ice Age (by stalling out the Conveyor), then the response should be to blast a channel through either Panama or Nicaragua to restore that communication of the waters.

m1omg · 2007-07-05 14:31:51

You will disrupt the Earth natural regulation systems.There are a lot of desert organisms and you will kill them.You will destroy one habitat.
Anyone ever tought about this?
Hi m1omg, welcome to New Mars.
I think you would have a heavy burden of proof to show that reversing desertification was harmful.

Hi,

Because some animals are depended on that habitat - desert rodents, scorpions, cactus, vultures and they will become extinct.
Do not be arrogantly anthropocentric, it is like destroying one's house and builing shopping center here.
Human caused desertification is bad.
However we have no right to destroy natural ecosystems.

Imagine if some aliens from Titanlike world wanted to "terraform" Earth....

noosfractal · 2007-07-05 19:40:54

Because some animals are depended on that habitat - desert rodents, scorpions, cactus, vultures and they will become extinct.

I'm sure a balance can be struck.

we have no right to destroy natural ecosystems.

Unconsidered destruction is foolish, however the human population has grown so large that we can no longer live without environment modification.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 04:27:08

Because some animals are depended on that habitat - desert rodents, scorpions, cactus, vultures and they will become extinct.
I'm sure a balance can be struck.
we have no right to destroy natural ecosystems.
Unconsidered destruction is foolish, however the human population has grown so large that we can no longer live without environment modification.

Population control and terraforming of other planets and moons.

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 05:47:10

Population control and terraforming of other planets and moons.

Terraforming won't solve Earth's population issues. It is our duty to provide the best life possible for those who are on Earth now.

m1omg · 2007-07-06 05:57:14

Population control and terraforming of other planets and moons.
Terraforming won't solve Earth's population issues. It is our duty to provide the best life possible for those who are on Earth now.

And kill desert's natural ecosystems?

noosfractal · 2007-07-06 06:43:02

If we can turn deserts into forests and farms we should.

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#51 2004-06-01 10:49:48

Re: Terraforming the Earthâ€™s great Deserts - Turning the Sahara into a rainforest.

#52 2004-06-01 11:21:04

Re: Terraforming the Earthâ€™s great Deserts - Turning the Sahara into a rainforest.

#53 2004-06-02 12:47:53

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#54 2004-06-02 13:09:47

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#55 2004-06-02 13:50:52

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#56 2004-06-02 14:39:04

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#57 2007-05-03 21:49:37

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#58 2007-05-09 00:03:59

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#59 2007-05-09 10:11:45

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#60 2007-06-17 19:07:27

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#61 2007-06-18 18:27:26

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#62 2007-06-18 20:44:53

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#63 2007-06-18 21:20:38

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#64 2007-06-18 21:29:42

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#65 2007-06-18 21:40:52

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#66 2007-06-19 08:20:10

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#67 2007-07-03 11:19:23

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#68 2007-07-03 16:22:24

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#69 2007-07-04 10:07:19

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#70 2007-07-05 14:31:51

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#71 2007-07-05 19:40:54

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#72 2007-07-06 04:27:08

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#73 2007-07-06 05:47:10

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#74 2007-07-06 05:57:14

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#75 2007-07-06 06:43:02

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