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Coconspiritors OP t1_j6e3u6x wrote

Reply to comment by mugenhunt in ELI5/Why can’t we change the geography of a large area of land to bring desired weather by Coconspiritors

Economically, wouldn’t it be more viable long term that the costs associated with droughts, flooding etc. If you could dictate an areas weather, or increase probabilities, why wouldn’t it be seen in a good light?

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mugenhunt t1_j6e4gt4 wrote

The sorts of changes needed are WAY more expensive than you're thinking.

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byfpe t1_j6e6crz wrote

Good answers. But worth highlithing that there is geo engineering or climate engineers that could actually modify some parameters in the environment. As an example, some countries are able to induce rain, by dissipating very fine particles in the sky (please dont think that plane contrails are involved!).
An issue is that we cant really understand full effect of implementing this regularly or at large scale. For example, you could make it rain in some regions, but how would this affect other regions, what damage could it result in in the environment, or how could it backlash. Lots of ethic questions involved.

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GovernorSan t1_j6ebfgn wrote

China has or had a desertification problem because the communist government decided to use cloud seeding to control weather patterns, but they didn't actually know what they were doing, so large areas of the country turned to desert because they were no longer getting their natural amount of rain.

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Turnip45 t1_j6e9y5z wrote

I think you’re significantly underestimating the effort that would be required to relocate the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges.

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johrnjohrn t1_j6edfph wrote

Short answer, no. Not economically viable. Theoretically possible? Maybe. The unimaginable costs associated with terraforming swaths of earth to the point it had a noticeable effect on regional weather patterns make this not an economically viable solution.

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Ratnix t1_j6f91og wrote

And just what do you think is going to happen to weather patterns when you start removing and building new mountains?

All you're going to do is move the location of the weather somewhere else. And that will effect the weather all across the world.

You might be able to make a small local change, but you could screw up the weather for a much larger area.

That's all assuming it was even something that humans could do in the first place.

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