[Carl Cantrell[ :
"So how is our problem of continental drying causing global warming? It all has to do with vegetation and sunlight. When sun light hits a plant, it causes a process which we call photosynthesis where the energy from the sun light creates oxygen for us to breath, water for us to drink, and is stored as sugar for plants and animals to use. When the same sun light hits the soil, all of its energy turns into heat and is radiated back into the atmosphere, carried away by running surface water such as rain fall, is carried away to other areas by our winds, and diffuses down into the soil towards the earth's crust. All of this warms our planet increasing its average temperature.
Therefore, the less vegetation you have on the planet, the more sunlight is being turned into heat and the warmer the planet becomes. This is very critical because warmer and dryer winds dry out other land areas faster decreasing the vegetation on those land areas. Less humidity in the air also reflects less sun light back out into space so that more sun light strikes the earth and more heat is generated.
The truth is that you can do more to decrease global warming by just reducing the average temperature for the Sahara Desert by one or two degrees than if we humans completely quit using fossil fuels and returned to the cave.
So, how would you start working to resolve this problem? Easy, cool the deserts and get some vegetation growing on them as soon as possible. But the method is much more complex than that. You have to use the prevailing trade winds in relation to the deserts to get the best results as quickly as possible and it will be extremely expensive.
Then we build desalination plants along the coast near these water sheds and pipe water to the tops or ridges of the water sheds
This will do a number of things. First, it will increase the moisture in the desert soil so that it will develop water tables and water will begin to run in the streams. This water will increase the amount of vegetation in the area and decrease the amount of heat being generated by sun light cooling the watered area and all areas down wind of the watered area. As more available water evaporates, it will cool the air and reflect more sun light back out into space cooling the area even more. Cooler and more humid air will have less of a heating effect on areas down wind and will reflect more sun light back into space in those areas cooling areas we won't be watering yet. Cooler and more humid air will also have less of a warming effect on our seas and oceans.
Rain water running off of cooler soil will decrease the heating effect on our oceans and our planet crusts which will decrease catastrophic storm activities for other areas and seismic activity for the entire planet. Also, returning more ocean water to the surface and aquifers of our continents will lower the sea levels providing more usable land for us to farm and build on.
With cooler desert areas and increasing vegetation, less water will evaporate from our deserts increasing the amount of surface water even more and increasing the amount of vegetation and animal life by huge amounts because deserts currently take up more than 20% of our land surface. Populations will be able to spread out and there will be less competition for existing land areas.
This strategy has to be done in steps with the first step being to begin slowing the rate at which our global warming is increasing. We need to focus on that until we have brought it to a point to where the temperature is not increasing any more and is reasonably stable. While we are doing this, we need to come to a global consensus of just how cool we want to cool our planet down to. If we cool it down too much, we will begin to have devastatingly harsh winters in large populated areas and even cause an ice age to set in.
Then we begin cooling the planet down to a point which will be most beneficial for all countries or the planet as a whole. We need to gradually bring the temperature down because there may be a lag effect in which the planet will continue cooling after we stop increasing our efforts to cool it off more. We may even want to stop cooling the planet once or twice before we reach our targeted temperatures to see if there is a lag effect
We need to start working on this as soon as possible because, if the planet reaches a point to where it is warming faster than our technology can possibly stop or reverse this warming trend, then our planet is lost and all life will cease to exist on this planet within a relatively short period of time.
We will need to start with the largest and hottest deserts because cooling them will have the greatest benefit in the least time. (Global Warming II by biologist Carl Cantrell).
Biography
