Anthropogenic low pressure regions occur when heat generated
from human activities is injected into the atmosphere. Good examples include
large coastal cities and large fires near coastal areas. For instance, the
Kuwait oil fires during the Gulf War injected sufficient heat into the
atmosphere to sustain heavy rainfall over the area. This occurs when the low
pressure region created by the heat draws moist air from the Arab sea and the
aerosols emitted by the fires serves as condensation nuclei for the moist air.
Deserts cover one third of the Earth’s land surface and they
are characterised by extremely low amounts of precipitation. Strong solar
heating during the day forms a natural low pressure region over a desert while
at night; this is replaced by a high pressure region as heat absorbed during
the day is rapidly lost. This creates a tendency for moist air over a neighbouring
ocean to be drawn towards the desert during the day with the reverse occurring
at night. Such a daily oscillation of airflow is unable to push moist air into
the desert interior.
The injection of heat from nuclear reactors situated in the
middle of a desert can maintain a persistent low pressure region and the
constant suction can draw moist air from the ocean deep into the desert’s
interior. This is expected to lead to an increase in the amount of
precipitation and can potentially transform the desert landscape, allowing an
increase in vegetation cover and creating more land for agriculture and human
habitation. A cluster of nuclear reactors with a net heat output of 10 billion
watts can create an effective suction radius of a couple of thousand kilometres
around it. For example, if it were situated in the interior of the Sahara, it
can draw in moist air from the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea,
transforming the Sahara into a lush and fertile region.
During the day, the surplus heat energy produced from the
nuclear reactors can be converted into electricity or can be used to convert atmospheric
carbon dioxide into commercial-grade gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel. The
use of such hydrocarbon-based fuels is carbon neutral since the net amount of
carbon dioxide released back into the atmosphere is zero.
References:
1. Moninder Singh Modgil (2002), “Large Scale Weather
Control Using Nuclear Reactors”, arXiv:physics/0210008v1 [physics.ao-ph]
2. Moninder Singh Modgil (2008), “Climate Control Using
Nuclear Energy”, arXiv:0801.0320v1 [physics.gen-ph]