if you where to create an artificial lake in the desert, would it increase rainfall (due to evaporation)?
599370
Hi - have those areas you mentioned any trees left standing??? TREES BRING RAIN!  Everyone in the world please say this twenty times - each day... Water evaporates from dams and lakes and oceans - even oceans of water; in tree leaves... People perspire - Trees transpire Transpiration... Water, H20; --- which forms into clouds at high altitudes and low temperatures, then gets blown away... Only trees bring them back again - TREES BRING RAIN! Trees attract rainclouds and rain - like a magnet attracts iron filings... I once saw a waterfall in the desert! 5 to 10 acres of trees (left standing in a "once" wheat field) above it one single solitary cloud raining heavily; vertically: in an other wise cloudless sky. From one horizon to the other not one other tree was standing... Think flat billiard table. Outback Australia - Man-made desert. Truly! Surely others have seen this too... These areas were once diary farms, green as Ireland, then the "scrub" (read rainforest) was "cleared" (felled)... Once the trees were gone - so was the rain. I have interviewed people who went to school in these areas, still live in these areas which would today not grow a descent cactus... They are the grown up children of dairy farmers - waiting for rain!!! One said - "I was lucky I lived on this side of the creek - I missed a lot of school because it was always flooded." This same creek has not seen water now for decades... You work it out...
1113363
The first thing to come to my mind is if you're talking about convective rainfall, which requires the ground to heat up.  If you have a layer of say altostratus clouds (with no precip) move over an area, the solar heating will decrease and this could halt any convective clouds that may have been forming, and which may have produced rain if the heating had continued.  But this is just off the top of my head.
670407
False.\n\nPermeable rocks allow water to move through them. Impermeable rocks don't therefore the water would run off.
180094
First let me say that this is a guess--- Because the earth is getting hit with metors I think the volume will go up-- against this argument is the idea that as it cools it will shrink.  My guess is that the increase will more than offset the cooling factor further if the exterior is actually warming it might expand while the core cools and shrinks.  I wonder if that will cause voids and big sink holes.
425548
A desert cooler takes advantage of very low relative humidity to acheive its cooling properties.   Rather than relying upon a refrigerant system (i.e. Freon) with a compressor to circulate the refrigerant, a desert cooler uses evaporation of water to remove heat.  With a low relative humidity, water can evaporate quite rapidly, taking a lot of heat energy along with it.  \n\nThere are a variety of different techniques to exchange and remove heat from the air.  One that is used in less arid climates is called a swamp cooler, in which water is pumped from a pond, through a heat exchanger and then back through a fountain in the pond.  The fountain aids in the evaporative process, helping to keep water cooler.  \n\nWhile a desert cooling system may not be able to develop as cold of temperatures as a refrigerant-based system, it still can effectively reduce the air temperature, and do so using less electricity since a compressor is not required to run.
9604
No. They are far too large for any single or even series of rainstorms to have any noticeable affect on the water level. However, if our weather patterns started to change significantly and over many years we had more and more rain, then the water level could rise. It would be a slow process.
254615
You would need to make a distiller of sorts - the sun's rays could evaporate the pure water, and you would just need to capture the water vapor - use a leaf or something similar to direct the vapor into a cup.  \n\nHere's a link on PBS Kids that explains it. Of course, on a deserted Island, you might not have plastic wrap, but you could very well improvise.
524577
Water which can be used to irrigate fields and genrate electricity if dammed up.
475129
Next to Sedona. I been there several times. Bring plenty of water
554126
because of the salt content, salt tends to draw water out, hence out in the open the salt would allow the water to be evaporated much more quickly than fresh water
138955
I'm not familiar with this desert, but since all deserts are dry, and a most are hot, you can probably assume that the desert will be hot and dry.
564138
unlikely...even though the icecaps have been retreating over the last several decades, the Dead Sea has been drying up, mostly because of dams on the Jordan river above diverting water.
711503
fresh water --- the source is the snow melt from the Rocky Mountains.  The Hoover Dam impounds the Colorado River forming Lake Mead.  The "Lake" in Lake Mead is a misnomer --- it is technically a reservoir since it is formed by the impounding the Colorado River.  A true "lake" has no dam -- like Lake Tahoe or Crater Lake.
522348
This will create land & sea breezes.\n\nLand (sand) gains & loses heat faster than water due to water's latent heat properties.\n\nDuring the day, the land heats up faster than the water. A low pressure will develop over the land. This means that the air above the ground is warmed & will rise.\n\nSince air pressure will equalize, air from over the sea will move inland to replace the air that was lifted. A convection current starts. This is a sea breeze. (winds are named for the direction they come from.)\n\nThe opposite occurs at night. The land cools faster than the water. Since the water is warmer at night, a low pressure cell forms over the sea.\n\nHigher pressure from over land moves toward the low pressure to equalize. This is called a land breeze b/c it comes from the land.
339755
It's mostly a desert so yeah I would think water and ability to grow anything would be fairly important.\n\nAdmit it.  You want us to help you answer the essay question on your take home exam don't you!!!
1082616
I think that would be the Great Indian Desert. Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_indian_desert
643686
It would make water (H2O).