Terraforming Australia

Would it be feasible? Would it be possible?

Would it be something worthwhile for Australia to undertake?

I think the reason the interior of Australia is so dry and hot is actually simply because it's dry and hot; the heat bubble prevents moisture laden winds from blowing across the continent. The lack of rain allows the ground to dry out, which allows it to heat up, which drives off rain, which allows it to remain hot indefinitely.

However, by starting close to the west coast of Australia where there is still a fair amount of rainfall, and by planting rows of trees year after year slowly advancing towards the interior, wouldn't the increased vegetation and thus cooler ground temperatures lead to increased rainfall? Thus, cementing the newly planted artificial forest as a permanent feature that would continue to exist and develop without any human management? The extreme heat of the interior prevents new forests from growing because the seeds cannot take root, and in fact can be killed outright by the surface temperature, but hardy tree saplings planted by humans would be able to establish themselves and survive. As the newly planted tree line advanced into the interior of Australia where it is currently extremely dry, they would bring with them a front of relatively cool moist air, thus pushing the climate from a desert towards a much more forgiving and more temperate condition. Eventually the planted tree line would reach all the way to the east coast, at which point it'd probably make sense to start over again by spreading seeds of less hardy but faster growing plants and ground covering plants, until eventually an entire multilayered and vast forest was established.

I'm pretty sure that by doing this we'd only be reversing the consequences of some horrible event in the past that turned Australia from a regular land mass into a flaming eternal desert.

This is actually quite interesting.
Of course Australia has the great artesian basin but i doubt that its large enough to make much of that land usable, and the east coast needs it.
so what methods would you purpose to do this?
all i can think is a fuck load of desalination plants (nuclaer or solar powered) built in SA that pump clean water into the centre of the country. once significant amounts of biomass accumulate some water should remain in the system, although it never will be independant

how bout just replacing the rabbit proof fence with a rabbit proof canal, that way you have water being spread all the way across, and whilst it would be saline, you would be able to grow beach style vegetation near it and the evaporation would lead to more vegetation further away form it. an it would also have the benifit of stopping them damn cane toads
in fact get me my shovel

I've never seen a wild cane toad here in my life. Lucky you

Is terraforming the climate near Ayres Rock part of the plan? Wouldn't the abos go mad because >muh spiritual stone

It is worth considering that level of productivity would be required.
much of the interior of the country is nothing but cattle. to graze cattle significantly less fertile land is needed then to say grow wheat or what have you. as such developing GMO grasses that are tolerant to high temperature and drought might be a possibility. central australia gets just 150mm of rain per annum.
the amount of water that would be needed to pump in is insane, however on the same token very little pesitcides or herbicides would be needed as the region is effectivley sterile. methods such as aeroponics could be very effective at water concervation, however due to the low humidity a lot would be lost the the atmosphere.
perhaps a more effective strategy would be to use have large solar arrays and to have vertical farms nearer to the coast which genetically modified plants which can survive under extrememly intense light, and thus have a high yield when grown aeroponically

but realistically this isn't really feasible, at least not with the current socio-economic position of australia, in all honesty the best method for using this land would be to graze speically bred camals than are even more drought resistant and have better tasting meat - or to do the same for emus.

>I think the reason the interior of Australia is so dry and hot is actually simply because it's dry and hot

really made me think

Australia is the size of Europe and they have like 20 million people, is there any point in doing that?

>Wouldn't the abos go mad because >muh spiritual stone

fuck em

If they had most of their land area transformed from inhospitable to a more European climate they could support a much larger population, plus the continent could have a chance to develop more biodiversity due to the fact that there'd be more niches if we changed it from sand and rocks to trees.