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Abstract

There is a statistically significant correlation between the heat content of the coastal Mediterranean accumulated during the summertime and the precipitation for the corresponding period from November-December to March-April for Jerusalem. Tzvetkov and Assaf (1982) and Soloviev et al. (2017) proposed to store the additional amount of heat on the Israeli coast during summer months by increasing ocean mixing with wave-inertia pumps. This artificial upwelling system can increase the heat content of the coastal Mediterranean during the summertime and thus potentially increase winter rains in the Levant. The analysis conducted in this work, however, has shown that for this purpose an artificial downwelling system can be more effective. The effectiveness of the artificial downwelling systems has been estimated with computational fluid dynamics tools. Consisting of approximately 100 wave inertia pumps, such a system installed a few miles offshore of the Israel coast of the Mediterranean Sea is expected to support green infrastructure in the arid and semiarid environments and advance agriculture, forestry, and farming in the Levant by increasing rain rates during the winter season. Remarkably, this system does not require external electrical energy for operation.