UAE 'creates' artificial rain

[Kaylia]

Eco-system change would be the biggest concern, I believe, at least in the rural/non-urban regions. I'm no ecologist, so I don't know what happens to deserts and their ecosystems when the rain pattern changes dramatically.

Nasty spiders, scorpion, and snake? fuck that. Drown them if you can.

Why though? It's not like they had to dump money to research how to do this extensively since you learn how rain is produced in elementary school. Only had to actually engineer and build the system.

Eh? This isnt as simple as water condensing, I'm not even sure physics can describe accurately what happen inside a cloud even if we get the general idea. To see such large scale experiment works is kinda impressive.

Surely there's a real consequence to forcing rain though right? Like it has to come from somewhere else.

It wont fall somewhere else.

I doubt the quantity involved are significant though.

[Drex]

won't wringing what little humidity there is out of the desert also make the climate even less tolerable? rain's nice, but it's still gonna be too hot during the day and too cold at night for plants to grow there. won't making the air even dryer make it colder at night and hotter during the day than it already is?

[Darus Grey]

Well I won't say I know there's no downsides, there's very likely very few. It's not like they're stealing rain from other countries, they're mostly stealing rain that woulda just rained into the ocean anyways.

Long-term they could be changing their habitat, but in a positive way(we don't "need" deserts, they're a desolate byproduct, it's not like a jungle which we have a reason to preserve).

Most the issues will probably end up being human ones(like desert cities having poor drainage systems).

Possibly short-sighted, but I think the benefits greatly outweigh the risks when it comes to terraforming deserts.

[Ikith]

Got to:
Produce charged particles.

Then immediately thought:
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:b...k_Fury.jpg&t=1

[Boyiee]

Doesn't rain evaporate before it even hits the ground there anyway? So are they getting anything more than shade?

As far as seeding in china, I think they've been doing something similar to seeding in louisiana since catrina destroyed so many trees and whatever else. However I think the cost and effect on the environment to do it was too high since the idea was to be green to make green.

[Meresgi]

While I'm not keen on cutting forests, I'm willing to risk ecosystem tampering for the purpose of turning deserts into habitable land.

Arnt most deserts inhabited by numerous species of life? (Been awhile since I watched Planet Earth O: )


A desert IS an ecosystem after all. But if humans can't live there we should totally change it to suit our needs, fuck nature.

[Silenka]

Nasty spiders, scorpion, and snake? fuck that. Drown them if you can.

No, we're talking the introduction of mosquitoes here. Massive throngs of mosquitoes which previously couldn't live in areas with little rainfall/patches of standing water, where they breed. I see that being the biggest problem (and that is a BIG problem). It would only be a matter of time before mosquitoes started moving up from Africa and passing around all kinds of horrible diseases to a population that isn't ready for them. Stuff like this would be easily reversed in that case - especially in countries that are low on sanitation and ill-equipped to handle even more health issues than they already have.

[Darus Grey]

Arnt most deserts inhabited by numerous species of life? (Been awhile since I watched Planet Earth O: )


A desert IS an ecosystem after all. But if humans can't live there we should totally change it to suit our needs, fuck nature.

Yes, we should.

[Arrmani]

No, we're talking the introduction of mosquitoes here. Massive throngs of mosquitoes which previously couldn't live in areas with little rainfall/patches of standing water, where they breed. I see that being the biggest problem (and that is a BIG problem). It would only be a matter of time before mosquitoes started moving up from Africa and passing around all kinds of horrible diseases to a population that isn't ready for them. Stuff like this would be easily reversed in that case - especially in countries that are low on sanitation and ill-equipped to handle even more health issues than they already have.

Sounds like an ulterior motive to me. We can trade our fancy medicine for their oil when they get sick.

[Cantih]

Arnt most deserts inhabited by numerous species of life? (Been awhile since I watched Planet Earth O: )
A desert IS an ecosystem after all. But if humans can't live there we should totally change it to suit our needs, fuck nature.

That's pretty much what I meant. Save the rain forests, restore the everglades, protect some endangered species and keep them wild, etc.
But desert life can go live in a zoo/preserves/greenhouses/whatever so we can keep access to the genomes. The Sahara is fucking huge, and we could damn well use it.

[Kerberoz]

Nasty spiders, scorpion, and snake? fuck that. Drown them if you can.

Have you seen how much bigger they get in the rain forests?

[Cantih]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...conda_ver2.jpg

[Khajit]

Alot of the dessert area in the region wasn't originally like that a few hundred years ago though so would it be considered removing a dessert climate or changing it back to the previous one?

[Meresgi]

That's pretty much what I meant. Save the rain forests, restore the everglades, protect some endangered species and keep them wild, etc.
But desert life can go live in a zoo/preserves/greenhouses/whatever so we can keep access to the genomes. The Sahara is fucking huge, and we could damn well use it.

What would the long term consequences be though? I'm sure there's something the deserts contribute? Other then muslims...amirite.

[Meat]

what's going to be their excuse for not showering now?

[Jaybar]

Alot of the dessert area in the region wasn't originally like that a few hundred years ago though so would it be considered removing a dessert climate or changing it back to the previous one?

Are you talking about the Sahara region or Arabian? I know that a lot of the Sahara is advancing, but I don't think the Arabian desert is getting much larger unless the Euphrates and Tigris dry up.

[Khajit]

I'll admit my geography has steadily been getting worse but If i remember correctly concerning the irrigation system in place that was established back when human civilization first came out was destroyed my mongols a few centuries back along with pretty much everything/everyone alive. The result was essentially widespread man-made desertification of the places which were dependent on the irrigation system.

[Rhinox]

[snowtoday]

I'll admit my geography has steadily been getting worse but If i remember correctly concerning the irrigation system in place that was established back when human civilization first came out was destroyed my mongols a few centuries back along with pretty much everything/everyone alive. The result was essentially widespread man-made desertification of the places which were dependent on the irrigation system.

Nice point for sure.

[Shenrien]

11M to have a bunch of hoses draped over the desert with holes punched in it? what a waste!