Flooding the Sahara - Page 2 - Historum

**AlpinLuke** · August 18th, 2012, 10:33 AM

No, to flood the Sahara is simply useless if you don't change the circulation of wet wings from Atlantic Ocean, and the only way to do it is to destroy the Atlante mountain chain ... [I'm not sure that Kingdom of Morocco would agree with this ...]

WeisSaul · August 18th, 2012, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davidius

Sadly it doesn't work out as simply as that. The clouds will indeed form, but then the heat induced high pressure drives the clouds north and all that rainfall will drop on Europe. This has been the prevalent weather pattern for millenia. Several times a year the average motoring Brit will find himself hosing Saharan dust off his car, deposited there by high altitude winds picking up dust storms.
We could flood the Quattara depression but I doubt it would stay flooded.

Wouldn't the rainwaters eventually run back into the Mediterranean which is where the new gulf of/lake Qattara's water would be coming from?

Qattara_Depression_Project

**Davidius** · August 18th, 2012, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WeisSaul

Wouldn't the rainwaters eventually run back into the Mediterranean which is where the new gulf of/lake Qattara's water would be coming from?

Yes the supply of incoming water would be inexhaustible.
The downsides (Toxification of groundwater, cost, upsetting the Bedouin, long distance desert logistics etc) would far outweigh the benefits from power generation. Nuclear would be quicker, cleaner and cheaper.

WeisSaul · August 18th, 2012, 03:13 PM

A great article on creating lakes in Tunisia and Algeria:

Engineering news - Google Books

Also, wouldn't underground tunnels feeding water into the Qattara depression, I with an open canal, help to provide steady water flow?

Emperor Trajan · August 18th, 2012, 04:59 PM

People belive that the Sahara used to be a rain forest

**Frank81** · August 18th, 2012, 05:45 PM

During the Holocene, Sahara most arid regions of today desert received 50-100 l/m2, while most of the area got 300-500 l/m2, it was stepparian in driest areas, mostly savanna and might forested in better areas. Lakes were huge and rivers caudalous.

The cause of this situation is not clear. Some say that it was orbital, this means, Earth rotated in a way, that Sahara was in a position relative to sun like today more southern areas. Other authors say that global warming favoured the area by enhacing stronger moonsonal activity. People tend to think that more heat = drier climate, and that's wrong.

Whatever the case, a plan for large areas of the Sahara is unpractical. Consider this: in order to make green Sahara, full of lakes and rivers, mother Nature had to give rains for the area of around 300 l/m2 yearly to compensate evaporation, or 0.3 m3. This means 2,400,000 km3 yearly, while total volume of Mediterranean sea is 3,700,000 million km3.

Might little areas could be flooded: Qattara depression has a volume of 1176 km3, while London yearly consumption of water is 623 km3. This means, humans can make infrastructures to flood the area. The question is, why would someone waste so much water in that way?