[ExI] Greening the Sahara

[Brent Neal]

On 17 Jul, 2009, at 17:41, Dan wrote:

> I'll have to look this up. Thanks for recommendation!
>
> Prima facie, though, I'm thinking this would be slow and take a  
> long, long time. Warming up the desert would quickly draw in moist  
> air, increasing rainfall. (I reckon the problem then would be  
> keeping this rainfall high and then making sure the water doesn't  
> just runoff and away from the desert area.)
>
> Regards,
>
> Dan


The Jordan project showed significant results in 2 years. The beauty  
of it is that success causes an acceleration in rate. As you get more  
canopy cover to slow evaporation and more organic matter to hold water  
down, you get the band of cooling necessary to take that warm moist  
air and get it to dump its water where you want it.

You're exactly right about the runoff being a problem. The way the  
permies handle that is to build large swales on contour to hold the  
water in and force it to soak into the ground.

B


--
Brent Neal, Ph.D.
http://brentn.freeshell.org
<brentn at freeshell.org>