Yes! Only 11,000 years ago, the solar intensity over the Sahara was 7% greater (Milankovitch, natch!) which caused about 10% more convection of air over land… from the humid Mediterranean! That’s just a 10% boost, but it was enough to cross a ‘threshold’ of humidity, when clouds can actually form, and rain can actually fall. There’s still moisture above the desert—it’s just never dense enough to come back to Earth!
So, the Sahara got 10% more moisture, which let a few plants grow… and plants are darker than desert rock, so they created a steeper gradient of heating every morning—the green inland regions got hot and humid fast, air rising, which pulled MORE sea-breeze and humidity deep inland! It’s a feedback loop, which was how the Sahara was green for thousands of years, covered in laurel forests and grasslands, in cycles stretching back tens of thousands of years.
The Point: if we add just a little bit more water, we can get a feedback loop, just like our geological past. We’re on the threshold of rain-formation humidity.
My guess would also be that if there is airflow over the ocean the air would hold most of the water you could hope for with such an approach.
Yes! Only 11,000 years ago, the solar intensity over the Sahara was 7% greater (Milankovitch, natch!) which caused about 10% more convection of air over land… from the humid Mediterranean! That’s just a 10% boost, but it was enough to cross a ‘threshold’ of humidity, when clouds can actually form, and rain can actually fall. There’s still moisture above the desert—it’s just never dense enough to come back to Earth!
So, the Sahara got 10% more moisture, which let a few plants grow… and plants are darker than desert rock, so they created a steeper gradient of heating every morning—the green inland regions got hot and humid fast, air rising, which pulled MORE sea-breeze and humidity deep inland! It’s a feedback loop, which was how the Sahara was green for thousands of years, covered in laurel forests and grasslands, in cycles stretching back tens of thousands of years.
The Point: if we add just a little bit more water, we can get a feedback loop, just like our geological past. We’re on the threshold of rain-formation humidity.