Solution: Rising Sea Levels & The Sahara Desert by littlewolf

Interesting proposal, seems creative and original. But pumping sea water into the ground would compromise the fresh water aquifers: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-17775211 In general, such an undertaking would consume a lot of energy, would inevitably disrupt the ecosystem, and the long term consequences may be serious. The other option, pumping sea water to the surface of the Sahara for evaporation, would also not really help, since all that water vapor would eventually turn into clouds which would rain down somewhere else... Yet I appreciate the idea, we need to keep thinking out of the box... Cheers !..

I find it highly doubtful that any of your desirable outcomes will be met through this proposal. Firstly, the area of the Sahara is only 1% of the area of the World Oceans. That means that in order to reduce global sea level rise by 1mm/year, you would need to distribute 10cm/year of water over the entire Sahara, and keep it there (without it evaporating/flowing back into the ocean through groundwater and river systems). This is a lot of water. Secondly, we are dealing with salt water here, that - as noted above - provides a threat to freshwater aquifers and cannot directly be used for agricultural purposes. Desalination is a very costly procedure. Finally, the dynamical response of the climate system to a greening of the Saharan desert will be highly complex, and will be associated with large changes in climate and weather patterns on regional and possibly global scales. I believe that at this point in time it is not known what exactly this response would be, but directly linking it to a reduction in hurricane activity over the Atlantic Ocean is tricky at the least.

An interesting idea. However, might be possible to have the political support of the countries in this part of the world? Be aware that to take for grantd the collaboration of these countries is not exactly a real assumption. To force the countries might create dangerous consecuences in term of legal consecuences.Thanks.