Weather

..."A general rule of thumb is to apply 10 gallons of water for every inch of trunk diameter when you water. Measure the trunk diameter at knee height. You can eyeball the diameter or hold up a ruler or yardstick to get the inches. The general watering formula is: tree diameter x five minutes = total watering time.Mar 29, 2012"...

You would have to calculate the water available to the quantity of trees you want to grow....In any case it's a lot, my guess is that you wont even come close to having enough water...

http://region8water.colostate.edu/PDFs/hg523.pdf

..."The Great Artesian Basin (GAB^[1]), located in Australia, is the largest and deepest artesian basin in the world, stretching over 1,700,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi), with measured water temperatures ranging from 30–100 °C (86–212 °F). The basin provides the only source of fresh water through much of inland Australia.^[2]

The Basin underlies 22% of the continent,^[3] including the states and territories of Queensland (most of), the Northern Territory (the south-east corner of), South Australia (the north-east part of), and New South Wales (northern part of). The basin is 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) deep in places and is estimated to contain 64,900 cubic kilometres (15,600 cu mi) of groundwater.^[4] The Great Artesian Basin Coordinating Committee (GABCC)^[5] coordinates activity between the various levels of government and community organisations."...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Artesian_Basin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_Australia

Map showing the number of rain days (i.e. days with more than 0.2 mm of precipitation) in Australia Data source: Dark Yellow <20

http://www.australien-info.de/daten-niederschlag.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deserts_of_Australia

I would drill wells at the below sea level gray area you see into the aquifer below and create an inland lake...

Hello Solar Eagle, thank you for your reply and the great statistics, much appreciated. Unfortunately, as I said n my O.P. was I am wondering about the weather change, if any, such a vast forest would cause. I know the logistics of doing this are out of the question because of the incredible logistics challenge. I am simply basing this on the loss of the massive rain forest overseas. Will the loss of this have any effect of the weather patterns. I often wish I had the time and youth to study this type of thing, so I have hopes of someone who might know, clearing up this question for me.

Rod

..."Rainforests, like all forms of vegetation, affect the "surface albedo" or reflectivity of a surface by absorbing more heat than bare soil. In turn, this warm carries moisture from forest trees into to atmosphere, where it condenses as rain. In other words, tropical forests cool local climate and help generate rainfall.Jul 22, 2012"...

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/0906.htm

reference search

Sort of a chicken or egg situation...you need the rain to grow the forest which in turn produces the moisture to supply the rain...However it seems this is all dependent on climate patterns, and I believe the stand alone forest would be a moisture losing proposition without the climate pattern assisting in adding moisture...better to build a solar powered desalinization plant, using the desert as an advantage for sunlight...go with the flow...

Jacko,

just check this post. There might be some truth in the madness.

Some good ideas there, if they all worked....!

I wondered about the salt build up. In some areas of Africa, you have to blast to get through it. Any ideas how Israel solves the problem? They have planted a great number of forests.

G'day J an E,

I know what you are saying but, the original question is a hypothetical one. I am not seriously suggesting that I go to the centre of the country and plant a million trees, I don't have that much time left..

I mentioned sewerage as a way of keeping these theoretical trees watered. Just think of the reduction of waste going into the oceans around Aus. Also the cost would be an impossibility..

I am only wondering if, IF, if this was to happen, what would the climate be.?

Rod

Hello and thanks for at least posing the question. I understand that it's a "thought experiment" and accept that you are after feedback for the forum to share.

In a later comment someone else indicated discussions about damming the coastal rivers and diverting them inland.

The maths on this is very simple. If ALL of the water falling on the coastal fringe of Aus above 500m was diverted west (through the ranges by gravity) it would still not be adequate to support the forest that you are describing. There is no-where near enough sewerage to support the proposal.

In fact, if all the sewerage was diverted inland, then it might enable the cities to avoid water restrictions. The river at Bourke hasn't flowed for a long time and many towns are already "shandy" mixing river water with underground brackish water to maintain supply. They are exceeding the drinking water guidelines for salt content as there is no alternative.

The reason that central Australia has such a rainfall deficit is continental in scale. There is no range in the West high enough to cause rainfall and even the range in the East is typically less that 1100m above sea level so moisture coming from the West doesn't get lifted high enough to change from vapour to droplets to then fall as rain.

There might be better outcome from having large solar farms converting solar energy (that converts to soil heat) and sending that electrical energy elsewhere. The exported heat creating local microclimates with reduced ambient summer temperatures and shaded space underneath.

Today is first day of spring and we are looking at 30 Deg C and around 20% humidity. Summer will have multiple days over 45 with air humidity around 15% to 20%. Some of the A/C guys here could calculate how much water would be needed just to humidify the air to 60% given that the air here moves around 500km East each day through natural weather patterns.

Fathers day morning tea time.

Thank you for your input Just an engineer. Yes, there are many things to consider in this question, however if we do nothing, then nothing different will happen.

As I have said on a couple of occasions, this is purely a "What if" question, there are therefore no absolutely correct answers but I hope some get something out of the thought process.

Rod.

Hello, think that your repeated comments about net zero might be flawed in the environment in central Australia where the proposal sits.

I've seen leaves up to five years old desiccated underneath trees out here and there are seldom any trees suitable for "harvested timber" other than firewood. The trees are stunted and deformed. Even when cut to 4" x 4" the cross grains would shear through most lumber every 4' or so. When there is fire here, there is no such thing as "rapid new growth". I drive past 100km of burnt out forest from a fire 4 years ago that is still barren soil underneath with skeleton tree trunks that were killed by the original fire.

The river here feeds the "Menindee Lakes" system and is drying back to zero flow. They are creating an ark for the native fish species and talking about evacuating whole towns in a 300km by 300km area as the contingency plan since there has been no inflow for the past 24 months and we are now entering the "dry "season here.

We are in a very different environment than in the U.S.A. and it may be that we are witnessing the commencement of similar event that took a couple of centuries to create the Sahara in "death by a thousand cuts drops".

It's getting bad when the dust precipitation is looking like exceeding the rainfall over the last five months.

There are scientists studying cloud formation.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/cloud-formation-in-the-amazon/

I think the issue with the center of Australia is simply that its location is not conducive to collecting moisture. Especially not in the same manner as the Amazon. The weather patterns and the geographical features such as mountain ranges promote wet weather which in turn encourages lush tropical growth.

Or is it the other way around? Does the Amazon jungle create the moisture that sustains itself? And if we deforest the Amazon will it turn arid?

I watched a Nova episode some years ago that described interlinked weather patterns that carry Saharan dust into the Amazon which collects and drains into the Atlantic. This in turn supplies nutrients for specific algae off the coast. I was looking for that episode when I found the cloud formation link above, but I can't find it now.

Quite correct NEL, however, my hypothetical says there must be several loos flushing at any given moment, this would be piped (and pumped) to the massive treatment tank I was referring to. This could then (theory again) piped to all the plantations mentioned. No bores or other water required.

However this was just a thought about for several years and wondered if this were possible, how would it change the weather...

<...the cost of this would be prohibitive...> How would it compare to the cost of not doing it, though (rhetorical question - NNTR)?

Supplying and planting sufficient saplings to cover an area of <...1000 square Kilometers...> would be an interesting exercise in both logistics and project management. Bear in mind also that to develop into a viable ecosystem, a lot more than saplings would be needed in principle.

A well-thought-through concept might form an interesting precursor to "terraforming" on other globes in the future, perhaps?

Good question PWSlack, all I know is the cost of piping and pumping and a massive treatment tank would cost $Trillions.

Afraid I can't afford that much out of this month's pension.

Growing trees in arid areas with limited water is just not an option. There were even ideas floated about daming the coastal rivers and turning their flows inland. Imagine how the green brigade, or is that briggands feel about that?

Many years ago I read an article that said to improve the rainfall in the desert of Australia the building of a mountain range, totally impossible of course, to interrupt the flow of air in the upper levels by forcing the surface air to rise and break the high level winds.

Maybe we could drill a series of deep bore holes down close to the mantle and set off explosiive charges to fracture the plate and bring lava to the surface. The down sides are that the lava may not build a mountain range or we could split Australia in half, a plus for some separatists and as the sea rushed into the void we could have a new trade route or one hell of a sauna to increase the atmospheric water vapour.

But hang on isn't water vapour a "greenhouse gas"? Oh no sunk again!

I can hear the tree huggers now....

Very interesting discussion but CR4 needs a climatologist or two because even the videos don't talk about the weather. My crude logic goes like this. If the surface of the ground is green, it will reflect less heat and therefore the air above it would cool down. If the air cools down the pressure reduces i.e. low atmospheric pressure and when the weather man says there is low pressure coming in then we know we are likely to get rain. Perhaps on an area as enormous as this lump of Australia this same thing could start to happen. Has anybody seen any mention of weather in relation to the areas in the videos. PS If you get into these videos, you can loose half a day without a problem.

Another point largely being missed is the soils.
Some of the alluviums are reasonable but even getting a simple vegetable patch to grow was an art form - requiring lots of cattle and horse shit.
Natives that grow well don't encourage other plants nearby.
What kind of forest would grow in those soil types?
Rain or no rain, water or no water, the soils do not make growth easy - even for natives.
The lakes down the southen end, Eyre, Frome, Coongie, Blanche, et.al, to where it naturally drains, are salt lakes for a reason.

Yes, planting trees can have a positive effect,but it is a slow process.

The key is to use the right kind of trees for the locale.

The best time to plant a tree was last year.The next best time is today.

China has had some success with planting trees to reduce desertification.

Here is an interesting link:

http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2013-08/03/content_29617955.htm

And another:

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/human-activity-in-china-and-india-dominates-the-greening-of-earth-nasa-study-shows

Hello Hi Tech... wow, those are amazing statistics. There may be some sense in what I have been mulling over for years.

Rod