INDRA Northern Levant Projects

INDRA Middle East Project
Letter to the editor of The National: Editor: The National As an avid reader of your publication, I am struck by the hydrological challenges of the middle east region. Unfortunately, these challenges of intense heat, and dangerously imbalanced hydrology, are seen as the natural or inevitable consequences of your region’s latitude. States around the globe close to the 30th parallel experience similar challenges. However, I question this reality as unalterable and claim categorically that this state of nature is within the hands of mankind to improve. Over the last few decades we have seen and acknowledged that the actions of mankind have collectively led to global warming. These temperature changes are magnified in traditional hot arid regions such as the middle east. Higher temperatures increase dew points: the capacity of the atmosphere to hold water in suspension. Higher dew points cause the oppressive humidity, that middle east residents increasingly endure. Global warming generates a vicious cycle of higher dew points reducing cloud formation, thereby exposing your region to more direct sunlight and even higher temperatures. It is generally acknowledged that global warming reduces cloud cover in desert regions and increases wind speeds. Increases in wind speeds results from the greater contrasts between arid and temperate zone air masses. Stronger winds at cloud elevations rob the region of rain clouds. The stronger winds, combined with the regular ITCZs (intertropical convergence zone) which form in the region, naturally complicate cloud formation. These ITCZs have long been attributed to increasingly violent tropical monsoonal rain patterns. The mountainous topology of the northern Levant also complicates both cloud formation and cloud retention, acting as humidity containers and rain cloud excluder's. Global warming has and will continue to increase these affects resulting in increasingly violent monsoons, frequent droughts, and sand storms.. Is there something that the sovereign middle east states can do with or without international cooperation to ameliorate these growing challenges? I believe an answer lies in the INDRA or RAINS project, which is ideally suited for the numerous micro-climates of the region. The Acronym INDRA stands for the Interior Natural Desert Reclamation and Afforestation project. RAINS is short for Regional Acclimatization Infrastructure Normalization Systems. In summary, an INDRA project is the strategically targeted interior evaporation of seawater, combined with the natural cloud nucleation affects of desert sands, to generate regional rain clouds. Utilizing the INDRA strategy, middle east states would pipe sea-water deep into desert areas. The system’s core functionality is that sea-water will be channeled and then evaporated by exposure to direct sunlight, (passive solar energy) in dark shallow channels, bordered by nucleating riparian zones, connecting a series of constructed bio-diverse salt marshes. The process of evaporation naturally desalinates seawater, transforming seawater into freshwater rainfall. Residual salt is concentrated in the channels allowing cost effective salt pan recovery methods. As the humidity of these interior arid regions is sufficiently increased, the first effect will be ground fog. Eventually rain cloud formations cycles will increase. Fog formation will begin ground hydration cycles, greatly reducing sand storms. Increased cloud formation will ultimately mitigate temperatures, As the hydrological cycle is normalized over many years, the region can be transformed at first to a semi-arid hydrology, and eventually into a temperate area similar to the rain forests of Brazil. A series of regional INDRA projects can be extremely cost effective, and could change the fundamental climate of this region within a human life-time. Gravitational Systems' bio-mitigation engineers, working with Gulf state governments, could bring INDRA-RAINS to the region within the next few years. While there are clearly no overnight fixes to centuries-old weather patterns, using our accumulating knowledge of environmental dynamics and expanding resources can eventually mitigate the march toward unbearable aridity. Given time and focused commitment, your children's children can gain the opportunity to return to Eden. www.gravitationalsystems.org/INDRA Gare Henderson, Vice President of Research and Development Gravitational Systems, LLC. gare.henderson@gravitationalsystems.org




Note: These reports are in progress, but severely limited by a lack of R&D funding.