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To: muawiyah
Irrigation could very well increase the amount of water evaporated into the air several percentage points. So, you're the smart guy, give us the answers on this one.

The short answer is that in irrigation (the part of it the works and isn't wasted) the water soaks into the ground and some of it is taken up by plants whereas over large open bodies of water there's nothing to slow it down.

Example: two thirds of the precipitation that falls east of the Rockies, comes from the Gulf of Mexico. It's a little over 66%.

Irrigation water evaporation on the other hand, has yet to reach the tenth of one percent range. It has about as much impact as an extra quart of water going over Niagara Falls.

We can even estimate the temperature of the water being used, in general, for irrigation purposes, as well as how much of it is sprayed and so forth, and it turns into a simple mathematical exercise.

It is definitely not as simple as that. You don't take into account the ambient air temperature, the dew point (which effects how much can be evaporated), how much of it is absorbed by the soil, winds, which can change the whole equation, the amount of insolation (sunlight) and dozens of other factors it would take too long to list.

If weather/climate research were as simple as you make it our to be, we'd already have our forecast for Easter 2020.

48 posted on 03/28/2006 9:17:55 AM PST by capt. norm (If you can't make a mistake, you can't make anything.)
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To: capt. norm; muawiyah
Evaporation is its own solution because under certain conditions water vapor turns reflective. Clouds and snow are white because they bounce back the full spectrum of light. They bounce sunlight back into space and bounce heat back towards Earth. If we manage evaporation, cause it to happen when conditions are right and suppress it when they are not, we can control the climate to be anything we want. If we create a canopy the climate below it cools forcing out the water. Most of the management would likely occur on the ocean surface. Scientists need to start developing these technologies rather than on leftist political solutions that are really anti-technologies.
49 posted on 03/28/2006 10:33:56 AM PST by Reeses
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To: capt. norm
Irrigation is generally used in arid or semi-arid regions. It's pretty easy to find the numbers needed to estimate all of this.

Concerning "soaking into the ground", it does that ~ INITIALLY ~ and then it is sucked up by the plants. Much of it evaporates directly ~ that's why irrigation leaves behind salt damaged land.

51 posted on 03/28/2006 11:27:59 AM PST by muawiyah (-)
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To: capt. norm
If weather/climate research were as simple as you make it our to be, we'd already have our forecast for Easter 2020.

Of course weather and climate are not the same thing. Weather is a relatively short time period affair, with changes more or less averaging out over longer periods. The lack of complete averaging over those longer periods is climate change. Weather is also a geographically limited thing, while climate may also be, but for larger regions. Obviously the two are related and an understanding of one will help with understanding of the other. Weather is probably the more difficult theoretical problem, but climate has more unknowns, some of them quite likely of the "unknown unknown" variety.

67 posted on 03/31/2006 10:35:42 AM PST by El Gato
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