<p>Sorta. But now you're hypersalinating a soil profile and once it evaporates it's now a salt flat. Better strategy is build &quot;Pools&quot; at high elevation then have gravity send the water back to the ocean in one big loop. Water will evaporate from surface, increasing ambient humidity overtime. On average, swimming pools lose about a quarter of an inch of water each day to evaporation (155 gallons per 1000 square feet) So a one square mile sized retainment area will evaporate 4.3 million gallons a day.
Another idea is seawater solar still. Pumped water would enter a green house semi-buried The humidity would rise and be diverted to a pump which said water would percolate into the ground. This ground water would sustain new vegetation which in time would humidify the surrounding area. <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/83sO6.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/83sO6.png" alt="enter image description here" /></a></p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-19T08:10:11.157Z
2021-08-19T08:10:11.157Z
LazyReader
<p>Water pumped into a desert would evaporate and increase formation of clouds which would in turn increase the albedo of the Earth.  Would this help to cool the planet more efficiently than trying to capture carbon?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-15T00:26:45.360Z
Deserts are often quite light in color, meaning they actually have decent albedo... whereas water is less than 10%. So it'd increase absorbed energy as a whole outside of the clouds. Think how much water you'll have to pump to get a significant increase in scale of cloudcover enough to effect global temperature? [This](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/a/7566/6298) answer to a [question about pumping water into the Sahara gives a reasonable breakdown on cost](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/7553/what-would-be-the-effect-of-bringing-seawater-pipes-to-the-sahara-desert).
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-15T05:04:54.447Z
The best way to increase albedo on the Earth is to increase snow/glacier/ice cover.  That being said, carbon capture is an extremely inefficient way to to cool the planet.  So perhaps its not a bad comparison.
f.thorpe
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-15T07:09:15.100Z
You'd have to take into account that water vapor is a greenhouse gas...
Jean-Marie Prival
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-15T16:20:41.640Z
In a related geoengineering issue, one of the researchers at my institution recently co-authored a paper on "what if we had tried to move water around to end the 1980s East African drought?" Their model shows that millions of pipes would have been needed and the process would have caused a drought elsewhere: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/simulation-points-out-possibilities-and-pitfalls-regional-geoengineering-schemes In other words, this would be a giant project with its own side effects quite aside from evaporating a bunch of water in a desert.
jeffronicus
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-16T03:31:50.637Z
(And no shame in asking an honest question, welcome to the site.  Just realize from my answers and the other's... it's not so simple as just it'd make clouds and make things cooler! :-) )
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-16T04:24:58.267Z
Given there is no constant band of cloud in the equatorial regions of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans I wouldn't have thought so.
Fred
CC BY-SA 4.0
2021-08-16T07:40:22.017Z
Thanks yes that makes sense. Find it difficult to understand how industrial carbon capture can really have a significant impact maybe might slow things down but all energy used would have to come from renewable source. To build  a planet sized recovery we need a massive infrastructure. Using the planets biological systems would seem to be the only viabke approach. That comes down to ecomics and making preserving and increasing bio infra structure as profitable as burning it or turning it into houses, furniture, farm land etc.
tom
<climate-change><geoengineering><carbon-capture>
If ocean water was pumped into a desert would it help cool the planet?
tom
# If ocean water was pumped into a desert would it help cool the planet?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2021-08-14)

Water pumped into a desert would evaporate and increase formation of clouds which would in turn increase the albedo of the Earth. Would this help to cool the planet more efficiently than trying to capture carbon?

**Tags:** climate-change, geoengineering, carbon-capture

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Deserts are often quite light in color, meaning they actually have decent albedo... whereas water is less than 10%. So it'd increase absorbed energy as a whole outside of the clouds. Think how much water you'll have to pump to get a significant increase in scale of cloudcover enough to effect global temperature? [This](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/a/7566/6298) answer to a [question about pumping water into the Sahara gives a reasonable breakdown on cost](https://earthscience.stackexchange.com/questions/7553/what-would-be-the-effect-of-bringing-seawater-pipes-to-the-sahara-desert).  
> **username_2**: The best way to increase albedo on the Earth is to increase snow/glacier/ice cover.  That being said, carbon capture is an extremely inefficient way to to cool the planet.  So perhaps its not a bad comparison.  
> **username_3**: You'd have to take into account that water vapor is a greenhouse gas...  
> **username_4**: In a related geoengineering issue, one of the researchers at my institution recently co-authored a paper on "what if we had tried to move water around to end the 1980s East African drought?" Their model shows that millions of pipes would have been needed and the process would have caused a drought elsewhere: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/simulation-points-out-possibilities-and-pitfalls-regional-geoengineering-schemes In other words, this would be a giant project with its own side effects quite aside from evaporating a bunch of water in a desert.  
> **username_1**: (And no shame in asking an honest question, welcome to the site.  Just realize from my answers and the other's... it's not so simple as just it'd make clouds and make things cooler! :-) )  
> **username_5**: Given there is no constant band of cloud in the equatorial regions of the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans I wouldn't have thought so.  
> **username_0**: Thanks yes that makes sense. Find it difficult to understand how industrial carbon capture can really have a significant impact maybe might slow things down but all energy used would have to come from renewable source. To build  a planet sized recovery we need a massive infrastructure. Using the planets biological systems would seem to be the only viabke approach. That comes down to ecomics and making preserving and increasing bio infra structure as profitable as burning it or turning it into houses, furniture, farm land etc.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2021-08-19. Score: 2

Sorta. But now you're hypersalinating a soil profile and once it evaporates it's now a salt flat. Better strategy is build "Pools" at high elevation then have gravity send the water back to the ocean in one big loop. Water will evaporate from surface, increasing ambient humidity overtime. On average, swimming pools lose about a quarter of an inch of water each day to evaporation (155 gallons per 1000 square feet) So a one square mile sized retainment area will evaporate 4.3 million gallons a day.
Another idea is seawater solar still. Pumped water would enter a green house semi-buried The humidity would rise and be diverted to a pump which said water would percolate into the ground. This ground water would sustain new vegetation which in time would humidify the surrounding area. [![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/83sO6.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/83sO6.png)


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