Would it be possible to irrigate deserts by leading ocean water through tunnels to a depth where it vaporizes and then allow steam to flow up either a few meters underground or right above ground (which ever gives best results)?
I seen no point in that. The future of farming will be indoors using aeroponic towers. Hell if you convert a shipping container into an aeroponic farm you can grow more food in it than you can on 1 acre of land.
we've been irrigating deserts for thousands of years. But digging giant tunnels is hard work and expensive too -yuri
Deserts already have a vast network of aquifers. In southern california, vast stretches of the coachella valley are covered in several miles of farms. In mecca hills, there is a large vineyard..
deserts are no good, imagine all the creatures tht would be in existence if it wasnt for those sandboxes israel did a good job in turning deserts green - what did they do?
We already irrigate deserts. Egypt is currently wringing every last ounce of water from their deep aquifers to farm veggies in the desert so the Brits can have Taters in the winter. Your idea seems just a little too complicated to actually work, plus what would we do with all the salt that would come with ocean water? It would contaminate all the fresh water in the aquifers that people depend on for drinking water.
would it, theoretically, be feasible to use steam to grow forests and jungles in all the world's deserts
you mean artificial rain? We already have that..its called storm seeding or weather modification. Actually creating enough steam to.cause rain would require HUGE ammounts of energy. Storm seeding works by spraying chemicals into the sky. These chemicals cause storm clouds to form by attracting wwater essentially. -yuri