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Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation. (That's why deforestation in the Amazon will possibly lead to

Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation. (That's why deforestation in the Amazon will possibly lead to desertification in the region.) Afforestation is far better than cloud-seeding to produce short-term rain. It's self-sustaining, takes carbon from the atmosphere, and creates new ecosystems (or rather, revives old ecosystems, hopefully with native wildlife). Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid.

myshpa 4y ago
> Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump > Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. Perhaps even Sahel, Sahara and large parts of USA and Asia as well.
- sampo 4y ago
  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump I don't think that Wikipedia page makes a good job in communicating how controversial and outside of mainstream that theory is. Here is a 2020 Science article which – while very sympathetic to the possibility of the theory being correct – makes a better job in describing how controversial it is. https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russia... The mainstream view can probably be described with some quotes from the review process of one their early (submitted 2010, published 2013) papers: NOAA's Isaac Held: "The authors make an extraordinary claim that a term that is traditionally considered to be small, to the point that it is sometimes neglected in atmospheric models and, even when not neglected, rarely commented on, is in fact dominant in driving atmospheric circulations. The effect concerned is that of the mass sink associated with condensation. This term is of first-order importance in some planetary atmospheres, such as Mars, where the total mass of the atmosphere has a substantial seasonal cycle, but for Earth the standard perspective is that the heat release associated with condensation dominates over the effect of the mass loss." Editor's decision: "The authors have presented an entirely new view of what may be driving dynamics in the atmosphere. This new theory has been subject to considerable criticism which any reader can see in the public review and interactive discussion of the manuscript in ACPD. Normally, the negative reviewer comments would not lead to final acceptance and publication of a manuscript in ACP. After extensive deliberation however, the editor concluded that the revised manuscript still should be published – despite the strong criticism from the esteemed reviewers – to promote continuation of the scientific dialogue on the controversial theory." https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013-discussion.html https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039...
  - myshpa 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump "The theory predicts two different types of coast to contentinental rainfall patterns, first in a forested area one can expect no decrease in rainfall as one moves inland in contrast to a deforested region where one observes an exponential decrease in annual rainfall." https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 "Life depends on Earth's hydrological cycle, especially the processes that carry moisture from oceans to land. The role of vegetation remains controversial. Local people in many partially forested regions believe that forests “attract” rain, whereas most modern climate experts would disagree. But a new hypothesis suggests that local people may be correct." Mainstream or not ... people are right, and recent droughts seem to confirm this. The theory may not be right or wrong entirely, however continuing with discounting the role of vegetation will be done at our peril.
- user070223 4y ago
  Currently they're fighting desertification in africa(and china) with the "Great Green Wall".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)
  - baq 4y ago
    $8B. This is like, a couple days of Pentagon spending? Sometimes politics just make no sense whatsoever.
    - ccooffee 4y ago
      I am regularly surprised at how "cheap" mega-engineering projects are compared to the things we (USA) already spend money on. Here's some examples of expensive things: * USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier: $13.3 billion [0] * F-35 jet program (covering expected lifetimes of all aircraft through 2070): $1.5 trillion (> $150 million per aircraft) [1] * TARP funds during 2007-2010 crisis: $431 billion [2] * PPP loan forgiveness (during covid): $742 billion [3] It's very tempting to declare these other expenses an exorbitant waste of potential when mega-projects come in so much cheaper: greening Africa ($8bn), using desalination and up-gradient pumping to re-hydrate the Colorado River ($15bn)[4], the large hadron collider ($5bn - $13bn)[5], and James Webb Space Telescope ($9.7bn)[6] to name a few. Sources: [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircraft-carrier-2021-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircra... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thenation.com/article/f35-fighter-jet-pentagon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thena... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program [3] https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ [4] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-w... [5] https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large-hadron-collider-cost-to-build-and-who-paid-for-it-n/ https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large... [6] https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst
- ggm 4y ago
  It has smaller persistently arid regions than people think, and the corollary is that there are huge intermittently arid regions which spring into visble productive green life. It also has a giant water system which runs almost the length of the eastern side, far inland from Queensland Channel country to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia, with many tributary rivers feeding in and being fed. It has a giant aquifer. The thing is that we're looking a 50,000 years of fire driven deforestation and arguing to restore some belief in past verdency ignores what might be the lived reality of these landscapes which are feast and famine and have been for thousands of years. Modern ag is much less kind, and has caused some massive destruction and topsoil loss and biodiversity loss. But, the goal in Australia wouldn't necessarily be a permanently verdent inland, it would be (I think) to work with what we've got. Getting rid of millions of feral camels would break some people's hearts, judging by how they romanticise the feral brumbies in the victorian and nsw high country, despite the damage they're doing. Getting rid of the dingo fence would be a good start: there's more growth outside it than inside.
eecc 4y ago
Well, reforestation of the Australian Outback would be such an awesome geo-engineering monument! Though I wonder about the ethical implications of the destruction of the current desert ecosystem
MrVandemar 4y ago
>Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. One limiting factor is that the soils are pretty gutless in many areas - as the settlers discovered when they arrived and found that the bushland was highly evolved to survive in those conditions (we have a great diversity of carniverous plants because of this), and farming wound up being much, much more challenging than they thought.
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  Another issue that would only be discovered later was that the trees in Australia kept the water table low. A couple of years after the deforestation and farming of a plot, the water level would rise, bringing with it salt from deep underground and depositing it on the surface. Effectively this permanently destroys the soil. Not only that, but i believe that the water also disappears a while after wreaking all this havoc. This is just something from a vaguely remembered lesson so i might have forgotten some detail.
- hgomersall 4y ago
  Apparently a big part of the solution is introducing a bit of organic matter into the desert soil which is one of the factors to kick start the process. I don't know much about it, but that's my understanding.

myshpa 4y ago

> Forests also have the potential to create their own micro-climates, with clouds and precipitation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump > Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. Perhaps even Sahel, Sahara and large parts of USA and Asia as well.

sampo 4y ago
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump I don't think that Wikipedia page makes a good job in communicating how controversial and outside of mainstream that theory is. Here is a 2020 Science article which – while very sympathetic to the possibility of the theory being correct – makes a better job in describing how controversial it is. https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russian-theory-claims-forests-don-t-just-make-rain-they-make-wind https://www.science.org/content/article/controversial-russia... The mainstream view can probably be described with some quotes from the review process of one their early (submitted 2010, published 2013) papers: NOAA's Isaac Held: "The authors make an extraordinary claim that a term that is traditionally considered to be small, to the point that it is sometimes neglected in atmospheric models and, even when not neglected, rarely commented on, is in fact dominant in driving atmospheric circulations. The effect concerned is that of the mass sink associated with condensation. This term is of first-order importance in some planetary atmospheres, such as Mars, where the total mass of the atmosphere has a substantial seasonal cycle, but for Earth the standard perspective is that the heat release associated with condensation dominates over the effect of the mass loss." Editor's decision: "The authors have presented an entirely new view of what may be driving dynamics in the atmosphere. This new theory has been subject to considerable criticism which any reader can see in the public review and interactive discussion of the manuscript in ACPD. Normally, the negative reviewer comments would not lead to final acceptance and publication of a manuscript in ACP. After extensive deliberation however, the editor concluded that the revised manuscript still should be published – despite the strong criticism from the esteemed reviewers – to promote continuation of the scientific dialogue on the controversial theory." https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039-2013-discussion.html https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/13/1039/2013/acp-13-1039...
- myshpa 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump "The theory predicts two different types of coast to contentinental rainfall patterns, first in a forested area one can expect no decrease in rainfall as one moves inland in contrast to a deforested region where one observes an exponential decrease in annual rainfall." https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/59/4/341/346941 "Life depends on Earth's hydrological cycle, especially the processes that carry moisture from oceans to land. The role of vegetation remains controversial. Local people in many partially forested regions believe that forests “attract” rain, whereas most modern climate experts would disagree. But a new hypothesis suggests that local people may be correct." Mainstream or not ... people are right, and recent droughts seem to confirm this. The theory may not be right or wrong entirely, however continuing with discounting the role of vegetation will be done at our peril.
user070223 4y ago
Currently they're fighting desertification in africa(and china) with the "Great Green Wall".[0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Green_Wall_(Africa)
- baq 4y ago
  $8B. This is like, a couple days of Pentagon spending? Sometimes politics just make no sense whatsoever.
  - ccooffee 4y ago
    I am regularly surprised at how "cheap" mega-engineering projects are compared to the things we (USA) already spend money on. Here's some examples of expensive things: * USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier: $13.3 billion [0] * F-35 jet program (covering expected lifetimes of all aircraft through 2070): $1.5 trillion (> $150 million per aircraft) [1] * TARP funds during 2007-2010 crisis: $431 billion [2] * PPP loan forgiveness (during covid): $742 billion [3] It's very tempting to declare these other expenses an exorbitant waste of potential when mega-projects come in so much cheaper: greening Africa ($8bn), using desalination and up-gradient pumping to re-hydrate the Colorado River ($15bn)[4], the large hadron collider ($5bn - $13bn)[5], and James Webb Space Telescope ($9.7bn)[6] to name a few. Sources: [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircraft-carrier-2021-9?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/cost-of-navy-uss-ford-aircra... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thenation.com/article/f35-fighter-jet-pentagon/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191206140954/https://www.thena... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program [3] https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/ [4] https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-water-than-rain-can-provide-refilling-rivers-with-desalination/ https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2022/11/20/we-need-more-w... [5] https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large-hadron-collider-cost-to-build-and-who-paid-for-it-n/ https://en.as.com/latest_news/how-much-money-did-cerns-large... [6] https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst https://www.planetary.org/articles/cost-of-the-jwst
ggm 4y ago
It has smaller persistently arid regions than people think, and the corollary is that there are huge intermittently arid regions which spring into visble productive green life. It also has a giant water system which runs almost the length of the eastern side, far inland from Queensland Channel country to the mouth of the Murray in South Australia, with many tributary rivers feeding in and being fed. It has a giant aquifer. The thing is that we're looking a 50,000 years of fire driven deforestation and arguing to restore some belief in past verdency ignores what might be the lived reality of these landscapes which are feast and famine and have been for thousands of years. Modern ag is much less kind, and has caused some massive destruction and topsoil loss and biodiversity loss. But, the goal in Australia wouldn't necessarily be a permanently verdent inland, it would be (I think) to work with what we've got. Getting rid of millions of feral camels would break some people's hearts, judging by how they romanticise the feral brumbies in the victorian and nsw high country, despite the damage they're doing. Getting rid of the dingo fence would be a good start: there's more growth outside it than inside.

eecc 4y ago

Well, reforestation of the Australian Outback would be such an awesome geo-engineering monument! Though I wonder about the ethical implications of the destruction of the current desert ecosystem

MrVandemar 4y ago

>Perhaps Australia - not just a country, but an entire continent! - doesn't have to be so arid. One limiting factor is that the soils are pretty gutless in many areas - as the settlers discovered when they arrived and found that the bushland was highly evolved to survive in those conditions (we have a great diversity of carniverous plants because of this), and farming wound up being much, much more challenging than they thought.

FridayoLeary 4y ago
Another issue that would only be discovered later was that the trees in Australia kept the water table low. A couple of years after the deforestation and farming of a plot, the water level would rise, bringing with it salt from deep underground and depositing it on the surface. Effectively this permanently destroys the soil. Not only that, but i believe that the water also disappears a while after wreaking all this havoc. This is just something from a vaguely remembered lesson so i might have forgotten some detail.
hgomersall 4y ago
Apparently a big part of the solution is introducing a bit of organic matter into the desert soil which is one of the factors to kick start the process. I don't know much about it, but that's my understanding.