New meteorological theory argues that the world's forests are rainmakers
Autor: Antonio Donato Nobre | Publicado: 2012-02-03T04:46:00-08:00


    Jeremy Hance
Read more at mongabay.com   
February 01, 2012


The  Amazon rainforest meets cleared area for cattle pasture. A radical  meteorology theory argues that loss of forest, both in temperate and  tropical regions, will lead to less precipitation over land. Photo by:  Rhett A. Butler. 


 
 

 
    New, radical theories in science often take time to be accepted,  especially those that directly challenge longstanding ideas,  contemporary policy or cultural norms. The fact that the Earth revolves  around the sun, and not vice-versa, took centuries to gain widespread  scientific and public acceptance. While Darwin's theory of evolution was  quickly grasped by biologists, portions of the public today, especially  in places like the U.S., still disbelieve. Currently, the near total  consensus by climatologists that human activities are warming the Earth  continues to be challenged by outsiders. Whether or not the biotic pump  theory will one day fall into this grouping remains to be seen.  



&nbsp;First  published in 2007 by two Russian physicists, Victor Gorshkov and  Anastassia Makarieva, the still little-known biotic pump theory  postulates that forests are the driving force behind precipitation over  land masses. Since the biotic pump turns modern meteorology on its head,  it has faced stiff resistance from some meteorologists and journals.  Meanwhile, it has received little attention in the public or  policy-sphere. Yet if Gorshkov and Makarieva's theory proves correct, it  would have massive implications for global policy towards the world's  forests, both tropical and temperate. 

"The biotic pump is a mechanism in which natural forests create and  control ocean-to-land winds, bringing moisture to all terrestrial life,"  Gorshkov and Makarieva told mongabay.com in a recent interview.  According to them it is condensation from forests, and not temperature  differences, that drives the winds which bring precipitation over land.&nbsp;


 



 
  
Forest in Big Sur, California. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. 
 "The biotic pump concept gives a consistent physical explanation of how  this should be interpreted. Rather than focusing on temperature  gradients, which are often a consequence rather than cause of the  circulation, one should investigate the conditions when condensation is  likely to occur to predict changes in atmospheric circulation," they  say, adding that recent work has used the biotic pump to quantitatively  explain tornadoes and hurricanes. 

But such a radical theory does not gain acceptance or even acknowledgement easily. 

"The biotic pump theory calls on the meteorological community to admit a  possibility that an important atmospheric circulation driver has been  overlooked. As long as one continues to ignore the role of condensation  in driving winds, one will continue to ignore the real role of forests  in the water cycle and climate," Gorshkov and Makarieva say, adding the  current underpinnings of meteorology fail to adequately explain drought  and flood events around the world. In addition, the biotic pump theory  helps shed light on the rise and fall of past civilizations, such as the  Nazca and the Maya. 

Gorshkov and Makarieva argue that despite skepticism, the biotic pump  theory deserves the full consideration of scientists—quickly.  

"Given the deforestation threat, there is no time to lose," they say,  further noting that only natural forests, and not monoculture tree  plantations, are able to act as biotic pump due because of the  ecological changes that occur when forest is converted into plantations. 

"The  biotic pump theory shows that natural forests are indispensable if we  want to have rainfall, and, consequently, agriculture on the land where  we live. This scientific message has important economic implications,"  Gorshkov and Makarieva say. "First of all, people and governments  worldwide should realize that economic growth cannot occur at the  expense of cutting forests either in one's own country or elsewhere. It  is undermining the very pillars of our civilization’s existence. When  water and food security are at stake, it is not possible for forest  industries to focus on growth, just to increase the global production of  wrapping and toilet paper. This should be the main topic of  environmental campaigns." 

It has long been known that the world's forests provide refuge to the  vast majority of terrestrial species, store massive amounts of carbon,  safeguard many of the world's most important watersheds, and are home to  numerous indigenous groups, yet forests continue to fall at staggering  rates. If biotic pump theory proves true, it adds a new and vital  ecosystem service to the world's forests: rainmakers. 

In a January 2012 interview Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva  describe the mechanics of the biotic pump theory, the difficulties of  gaining notice in the meteorology community, the relation of the biotic  pump to climate change, and how deforestation in places like the Amazon  and Indonesia threaten precipitation.  


A NEW METEOROLOGY: AN INTERVIEW WITH VICTOR GORSHKOV AND ANASTASSIA MAKARIEVA&nbsp;&nbsp;



Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva. 



Mongabay: Will you tell us how the biotic pump works? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: The biotic pump is a  mechanism in which natural forests create and control ocean-to-land  winds, bringing moisture to all terrestrial life. Winds tend to blow  from areas of high air pressure to low. But how is a low pressure system  created over land? Air pressure depends on the number of gas molecules.  When water vapor condenses, it disappears from the gas phase; the  number of gas molecules diminishes, and the air pressure falls.  Therefore, if we manage to maintain the process of condensation over  land, the latter becomes a persistent low pressure zone. 

Water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere possesses a remarkable physical  property: it is unstable to condensation. This means if an air volume  containing a lot of vapor is occasionally displaced upward, the air will  cool so significantly that the vapor condenses. Due to this  instability, if there is a sufficient amount of water vapor in the warm  lower atmosphere condensation will occur.  

The green foliage and branches of trees have a much greater cumulative  area than that of a tree projection on the ground. Hence, forest  evaporation enriches the atmosphere with water vapor more efficiently  than evaporation from an open water surface of the same area.  Consequently, condensation occurs more readily over forests than over  the ocean. Forests, rather than the ocean, become the low pressure zone  where the moist winds converge to. Completing the cycle, moisture  precipitates over the land and returns to the ocean in the form of river  runoff.  

Mongabay: Why do you associate the biotic pump with natural  forests rather than with trees in general? Could a monoculture tree  plantation act as biotic pump? 


 
  
A  palm oil plantation on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Such  plantations may look like 'forest,' but Gorshkov and Makarieva argue  that the biotic pump doesn't work over monoculture plantations as well  as over natural forest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler 
Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: As with all life  processes, the biotic pump is a highly-organized complex process. In  order to sustain condensation that keeps the air pressure low on land—so  that moist winds blow to land from the ocean—there must be intense  evaporation from the forest canopy. But evaporation diminishes the  amount of moisture in soil. Moisture is additionally lost from soil by  gravitational runoff. If all the soil moisture is gone, evaporation  stops, and so does the atmospheric moisture transport. This means that a  non-trivial balance must be maintained: forest evaporation must be  exactly such that it never fully depletes the soil moisture but at the  same time is intense enough to ensure that the amount of moisture  brought from the ocean by winds compensates moisture losses in the soil. 

Native species that form natural forest communities have evolved a  complex set of genetically encoded biophysical and morphological traits  that make the biotic pump possible. These traits took hundred million of  years to evolve. For example, the root system of forest trees  facilitates both storage and extraction of moisture from soil; biogenic  aerosols produced by trees control the intensity of water vapor  condensation over the forest; the large height of trees determines the  vertical temperature gradient under the canopy, keeping soil evaporation  under biotic control; tall trees are also essential for surface  friction that does not allow extremely high wind velocities to develop.  Thus, natural forests not only create an ocean-to-land moist air flow,  but also stabilize this flow at an optimum level and prevent its extreme  fluctuations like hurricanes, tornadoes, severe droughts or floods.  Species other than plants (bacteria, fungi, animals) are essential for  the stability of the forest ecosystem itself. 

Monocultures or plantations consisting of a random set of plant species  do not possess the required set of correlated traits. To give two  extremely simplified examples: if one plants cacti, they will evaporate  too little and will be unable to keep the atmosphere persistently moist.  If one plants eucalyptus, they will evaporate readily but will be  unable to prevent soil from drying. In either case, the biotic pump will  not work. Generally, information fluxes processed by the natural biota  exceed by twenty orders of magnitude the information processing capacity  of modern civilization. It is not possible to create a technological  analogue of the biotic pump. 

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE BIOTIC PUMP THEORY 

 This  figure shows the "tug-of-war" between the forest and the ocean for the  right to become a predominant condensation zone. In Fig. a: on average  the Amazon and Congo forests win this war: annual precipitation over  forests is two to three times larger than the precipitation over the  Atlantic Ocean at the same latitude. Note the logarithmic scale on the  vertical axis: "1" means that the land/ocean precipitation ratio is  equal to e = 2.718, "2" means it is equal to e2 ≈ 7.4; 0  means that this ratio is unity (equal precipitation on land and the  ocean);  "-1" means this ratio is 1/e ≈ 0.4; and so on. In Fig. b: the  Eurasian biotic pump. In winter the forest sleeps, so the ocean wins,  and all moisture remains over the ocean and precipitates there. In  summer, when trees are active, moisture is taken from the ocean and  distributed regularly over seven thousand kilometers. The forest wins!  (compare the red and black lines) As a result, precipitation over the  ocean in summer is lower than it is in winter, despite the temperature  in summer is higher. Finally, in panel (c): an unforested Australia. One  can often hear that Australia is so dry because it is situated in the  descending branch of the Hadley cell. But this figure shows that such an  interpretation does not hold. Both in wet and dry seasons precipitation  over Australia is four to six times lower than over the ocean. There is  no biotic pump there. Being unforested, oceanic moisture cannot  penetrate to the Australian continent irrespective of how much moisture  there is over the ocean; during the wet season it precipitates in the  coastal zones causing floods. Gradually restoring natural forests in  Australia from coast to interior will recover the hydrological cycle on  the continent. Click to enlarge.



Mongabay: Have there been any significant changes to your biotic pump theory over the last couple years? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: The physical basis  of the biotic pump consists in the statement that winds are driven  mostly by condensation-induced pressure gradients rather than by  temperature differences (such as warm air rises) as conventionally  considered. As we judged from the first reactions to our work, this is  the most difficult statement for the meteorological community to accept.  Recently we concentrated our efforts on demonstrating the quantitative  validity of the proposed mechanism of condensation-induced atmospheric  dynamics. We have shown that it quantitatively explains hurricanes and  tornadoes, having obtained from theory radial profiles of pressure and  velocity that agree well with observations. On the other hand, we  criticized some of the existing explanations of the same phenomena  arguing that these contain physical errors. A full list of our  publications concerning the biotic pump can be found here. 

Mongabay: Have you seen wider acceptance in the scientific community for your theory? 


 
  
Redwood forest of Russian Gulch State Park in California. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler 
Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: Generally, judging  from the increasing number of citations of our first biotic pump papers,  our work is gradually gaining more attention. The biotic pump theory  calls on the meteorological community to admit a possibility that an  important atmospheric circulation driver has been overlooked. As long as  one continues to ignore the role of condensation in driving winds, one  will continue to ignore the real role of forests in the water cycle and  climate. Given the deforestation threat, there is no time to lose. So we  are undertaking all possible efforts to stimulate a constructive  discussion of condensation dynamics by members of the meteorological  community. 

Still, the progress appears to be slow. In 2010 we submitted an overview  of the theory to the journal ACPD, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics  Discussions that allows for an open discussion of submitted papers:  Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Sheil D., Nobre A.D., Li B.-L. (2010) Where do winds come from? A new theory on how water vapor condensation influences atmospheric pressure and dynamics. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Discussions, 10, 24015- 24052. 

For six months the editors could not find reviewers willing to publicly  evaluate our work. After we informed the wider scientific community of  our situation, a leading NOAA hydrologist circulated our work among many  of his colleagues-meteorologists. Only one of them considered the  possibility of becoming a referee, and he strongly objected to our work.  As we have always welcomed any criticism to be put forward openly  regarding our work, we suggested that the editor invite the referee even  though we knew in advance that he had a negative view of our work.  After the negative review was posted, we replied to all the arguments.  Since then the paper was suspended, it has now been in open review for  over fifteen months and it's been twenty months since our submission. As  any scientist will tell you, such extraordinary impediments and delays  would discourage any researcher; they are disrupting the normal  scientific process. But we remain hopeful that our efforts are not in  vain.  

Mongabay: Can you give an example of why the current understanding of condensation and precipitation is wrong? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: Our work was  discussed rather widely on the web, sometimes with direct or indirect  participation of leading meteorologists. These discussions revealed that  the physics of condensation has not been given sufficient attention by  the meteorological community, the result being that even some very basic  issues remained unresolved and unclear to many. For example, a question  that caused a lot of confusion was: if condensation occurs in the  atmosphere and some vapor turns to liquid, will air pressure at the  surface be affected near instantaneously or only after the raindrops  have fallen to the ground? The latter is a common view caused by a  fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of hydrostatic equilibrium. 


 
  
Rainstorm over the Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. 
In hydrostatic equilibrium, air pressure at any height is equal to the  weight of air in the atmospheric column above that height. Many  meteorologists think that hydrostatic air pressure at the surface is  equal to the weight of both air and all the liquid and solid bodies  including the raindrops that are in the upper atmosphere. Had this been  true, condensation in hydrostatic equilibrium could have never changed  the surface pressure prior to precipitation fallout, because  condensation of gas (vapor) into liquid does not change the total amount  of matter. However, ideal gas pressure depends on the number of  particles not their mass. The number of liquid drops is many orders of  magnitude smaller than the number of gas molecules that have condensed  into those drops. Therefore, condensation immediately lowers air  pressure and disturbs the hydrostatic equilibrium. Recently a paper devoted to this question  was published in a leading meteorological journal where, with use of  numerical modeling, this conclusion was articulated. That a paper with  such a basic conclusion has appeared only now—in the second decade of  the Twenty First Century—demonstrates that the efforts to study the  dynamic effects of condensation by the meteorological community are in  their incipient stage. 

In the meantime, practically all climate and weather phenomena where  condensation and precipitation are involved are challenging modern  meteorology. For example, the existing global circulation models do not  adequately describe the water cycle in the Amazon, with the modeled  moisture convergence being half the actual amounts estimated from the  observed runoff values. It is widely recognized that despite the  ever-improving observation facilities and the available computer power,  there is no progress in predicting the intensity of tropical cyclones. 

When analyzing how precipitation changes with time (e.g., in the Amazon  or Congo regions) it is common to explore correlations with oceanic  temperature anomalies. The conventional logic is that as the ocean  becomes warmer, the warm air rises over the ocean and moisture  precipitates there rather than over land, hence a drought occurs.  However, such logic does not take into account that as the land becomes  drier, it also warms significantly. It is unexplainable within the  conventional paradigm why the warm air does not rise over the hot and  dry land. All heat waves and droughts, like the one in European Russia  in 2010 or the one in Texas in 2011, are associated with persistent  descending air motion. 

Neither are flooding events explained by the conventional paradigm. For  example, of the two extreme floods that hit Thailand in 2011, the first  one occurred early in the year during the dry season. Then the land is  cooler, the ocean is warmer and winds blow from land to the ocean, so  that the continent remains dry. In early 2011 the region was struck by  an unusual cold wave, which caused this temperature gradient to become  even more pronounced. According to the conventional paradigm, this  should only strengthen dry conditions. In reality, however, a major  flooding happened. 

Evidence of this type, which is controversial with respect to the  conventional paradigm, is mounting and the biotic pump concept gives a  consistent physical explanation of how this should be interpreted.  Rather than focusing on temperature gradients, which are often a  consequence rather than cause of the circulation, one should investigate  the conditions when condensation is likely to occur to predict changes  in atmospheric circulation. 

REGIONAL EXAMPLES OF THE BIOTIC PUMP 


The  Maya city of Tulum. Research is adding up that deforestation may have  been a large factor in the decline of the Mayan civilization. Photo by:  Rhett A. Butler.



Mongabay: Recent evidence has linked the decline and fall of  the Maya civilization to deforestation leading to less precipitation.  How could the biotic pump theory connect to this? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: This data, as well  as the data on the Nazca civilization in Peru, are in agreement with the  biotic pump concept. It is noteworthy that the Yucatan peninsula is a  relatively small region with maximum distance from coast never exceeding  a thousand kilometers. This means that even so close to the ocean,  massive deforestation can cause a significant precipitation decline. 

The proposed explanation (see article: Evidence mounts that Maya did themselves in through deforestation)  based on a slight change in albedo after deforestation and a  corresponding decrease in solar energy available for convection does not  make sense to us (although as we understand this work has not yet been  published so we could not read it in detail). The power of atmospheric  circulation does not exceed around 1 percent of solar power. It is not  limited by solar radiation, but by the flux of potential energy  available for conversion to the kinetic energy. The conventional  paradigm associates this potential energy with temperature-related  buoyancy. That is, to put things simply, if you do not have a  temperature difference, you do not have a circulation, all other things  (including solar energy) being the same. We propose a different source  of potential energy associated with water vapor removal from the gas  phase: after the Mayan forests were destroyed, evaporation and  condensation ceased to occur over the Yucatan peninsula (irrespective of  how its albedo changed). The result was that the low pressure zone was  no longer there and moist air ceased to come to the Maya from the ocean.  Generally, the biotic pump theory calls us to re-analyze the historical  evidence associated with land cover change and the changes in the  precipitation regime. 

Mongabay: How do you see deforestation in the Amazon as impacting regional precipitation? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: According to recent  analyses, during 1973-2003 precipitation in the Amazon River basin was  declining at a rate of 0.3 percent annually, which means a trend of  about 10 percent for the entire period. This does not include the most  recent devastating droughts of 2005 and 2010. In the meantime,  deforestation in the basin has amounted to about 30 percent during the  same period. Deforestation mostly disturbed southern and south-eastern  parts of the basin, where the precipitation/evaporation is less than in  the basin core. Assuming that the total biotic pump intensity is a  function of the integral of local precipitation over the total  forest-covered area, one can conclude that the decrease in precipitation  intensity is of the same order of magnitude as the degree of biotic  pump deterioration. As deforestation marches to the interior of the  basin and affects the ever more productive forests with the most  precipitation, the disruption of the water cycle in the basin will  increase disproportionately. 

Mongabay: How do you think widespread deforestation will  effect the hydrological cycle of places like the Indonesian islands?  Given their smaller size, do they need the biotic pump? 


 
  
Devastated  rainforest landscape in Borneo. Indonesia has one of the highest rates  of deforestation worldwide. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. 
Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: The total area  occupied by the Indonesian archipelago, including space between the  islands, is quite significant. Open water space between the  forest-covered islands can only slightly weaken the biotic pump of the  Indonesian forests that likely determine the precipitation regime in the  adjacent oceanic regions. Indeed, there is a relatively stable low  pressure zone over Indonesia that causes the so-called Walker  circulation: surface air moves from the high pressure region of the  eastern Pacific ocean towards the low pressure zone over Indonesia. When  this low pressure zone diminishes or erodes, the Walker circulation  weakens and an El Niño results. When the Walker circulation is strong,  we have a La Niña. These phenomena are well-known for their long-range  impacts on the climate of the Americas. 

The biotic pump theory helps us understand why there is a low pressure  system in Indonesia (because of intense condensation associated with  forest functioning). Thus deforestation in the region should lead to a  weakening of the Walker circulation. While this pattern needs to be  further explored, it is worth mentioning that while the period from 1950  to 1975 was largely dominated by La Niña's (strong Walker circulation),  starting from the late 70s the frequency of La Niñas dropped. This is  in agreement with the idea that Indonesian deforestation over the last  30 years could have modified the large-scale airflow. 

Mongabay: Does the biotic pump theory apply to boreal forests, such as those in Russia, as well? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: Biotic pump of the  boreal forest zone is fully responsible for atmospheric moisture  transport from the (Atlantic) ocean over several thousand kilometers.  Recent deforestation in European Russia is apparently disrupting this  mechanism causing abnormal warming and droughts. 

Mongabay: Does biotic pump theory modify our current understanding of global climate change? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: The widespread view  is that global climate change is largely due to anthropogenic pollution  of the global environment. The main anthropogenic pollutant is carbon  dioxide, which is emitted by burning fossil fuels. CO2 is the second  most important greenhouse substance in the atmosphere of Earth,  therefore its accumulation in the atmosphere is believed to be the main  cause of the observed warming and other climatic changes. The main  proposed strategy to combat climate change is by reducing carbon  emissions. 


 
  
Temperate  rainforest of Alaska. According to the biotic pump theory, both  temperate and tropical forests play a similar role in precipitation  patterns. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. 
However, the greenhouse effect on Earth is mostly determined by water  vapor and clouds, i.e., by atmospheric moisture, which is the main  greenhouse substance. The absorption interval of CO2 molecules covers  less than 20 percent of the spectrum of thermal radiation of the Earth’s  surface, while atmospheric moisture absorbs thermal radiation rather  uniformly over the entire spectrum. Therefore, the impact of increasing  CO2 concentrations on the greenhouse effect can be completely  compensated by a relatively minor change in the hydrological cycle over  land. Such climate stabilization can be performed by natural forests  that control the hydrological cycle on land and the adjacent ocean,  provided they are allowed to occupy a significant area. Conversely,  destruction of forests leads to disruption of the hydrological cycle,  which expectedly causes significant fluctuations of the magnitude of the  global greenhouse effect, up to complete loss of climate stability and  transition of Earth’s climate to a state incompatible with life. 

Most modern climate researchers have grown up on computer models of  climate and are used to believing in the model output. As illustrated by  the discussion of our work, it is rarely appreciated that by  artificially setting the needed numerical parameters it is possible to  simulate a very broad range of climate scenarios, including those that  will agree with observations of the past. The existence of simulations  that mimic the past and present reality does not mean that the physics  included in the models is correct or that the model can generate a  trustworthy prediction. 

What is more, modern climate modeling has been traditionally implemented  by people with a technological background and little knowledge of  ecosystem functioning. Such knowledge is generally poor, too. Thus, the  ecological systems are "fed" into the models as a set of geophysical  parameters, e.g., albedo, evaporation rate, surface roughness, amount of  stored carbon etc. While the numeric values of these parameters are  borrowed from reality, they do not represent the ecosystem functioning  in very much the same manner as a colored high-resolution digital photo  of a dead corpse does not represent a live human being. Without studying  the principles of highly-organized functioning of ecological  communities, including their genetically encoded ability to respond to  environmental perturbations in a non-random compensatory way, the  perspectives drawn from global circulation models with respect to the  climatic effects of land cover change (e.g., statements like cutting all  boreal forests will ease global warming) will continue to lack any  resemblance to reality. 

Quantitative analysis of ecological and biological variables is a very  complicated task due to the complexity of living objects. Consider a  flying canon and a flying bird that are both under gravity. A  quantitative description of the former is straightforward, while to  predict where and how the bird will fly from initial conditions is not  feasible. This complexity of living systems and the number of surprises  it implies for global environmental research has only recently begun to  be gradually appreciated across a number of disciplines, from organismal  energetics to soil biochemistry and climatology. 

The biotic pump concept (and more generally the theory of the biotic  regulation of the environment of which the former is a part) for the  first time quantifies the stabilizing environmental function of natural  ecosystems with respect to the hydrological cycle and pinpoints the  physical mechanism that is responsible for this function. We must  elevate the status of ecosystem conservation from a side issue in global  environmental talks and treaties (that are exclusively focused on  carbon) to an urgent high priority issue. We must also implement  targeted research programs to study the stabilizing impact of natural  ecosystems, to stimulate public discussion, and to raise people’s  awareness of the real value of forests.  

THE BIOTIC PUMP AND POLICY  



Mongabay: What policy changes does the biotic theory suggest for governments worldwide? 

Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva: 1. The biotic pump  theory shows that natural forests are indispensable if we want to have  rainfall, and, consequently, agriculture on the land where we live. This  scientific message has important economic implications. First of all,  people and governments worldwide should realize that economic growth  cannot occur at the expense of cutting forests either in one's own  country or elsewhere. It is undermining the very pillars of our  civilization’s existence. When water and food security are at stake, it  is not possible for forest industries to focus on growth, just to  increase the global production of wrapping and toilet paper. This should  be the main topic of environmental campaigns. 

There are important branches of human activities where economic growth  is not possible: that is, for example, fisheries. Consumption of natural  fish products is limited by the rate of their recovery in nature, which  is achieved by the mechanism of international quotas. Lack of such  regulations could result in transient economic growth, but would  ultimately lead to collapse of the entire industry when the fish base is  depleted. For a different reason, economic growth is equally not  possible based on criminal activities like selling drugs or human  organs. Were such activities encouraged, as are other economic  activities, this could lead to transient "economic growth" but then to  the physical collapse of the population. Where this is understood,  people are taking measures against such activities. 


 
  
Raw timber lines a port in Gabon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. 
The case with the forestry industry is less akin to fishery but more  akin to drug and human organ selling.  Humanity needs a large territory  of natural, intact, undisturbed forests to run the hydrological cycle on  land. This strict environmental criterion is incompatible with the  criterion of "sustainability" applied in modern forestry, when trees are  in the best case cut at the rate at which they regrow and when the  majority of trees are cut when they are 50 years of age. Conceptually,  this could be compared to growing human beings for organs and killing  them when they are, say, fifteen years of age. Such an "economic  activity" could be "sustainable" and "profitable" for some, but one  cannot expect civilization based on such "economics" to be stable and  give birth to Shakespeares, Mozarts, Einsteins etc. Human beings grown  for organs cannot live a normal human life, they cannot work creatively  or develop. Likewise, trees grown for timber cannot perform their  environmental function and stabilize the climate: only a natural  ecosystem with a full suite of all the necessary biological species can  do this. 

In other words, society must urgently take the course of gradually  shrinking the forestry industry. Destruction of natural forest  ecosystems is a crime against humanity and will be increasingly  perceived as such as new knowledge accumulates, environmental literacy  increases, and ethical standards change accordingly. Such radical  changes have happened in human history: slavery, once perceived as  economically prudent and otherwise "normal," was abolished. 

We must emphasize that the responsibility for the current situation,  where natural forests are being destroyed, rests on all the people of  Earth rather than with the forestry industry alone. We are all consumers  of timber products. Because many livelihoods depend directly on forest  exploitation today, large-scale programs are needed to gradually change  the professional occupation of these people, to slow down the forestry  industry and ultimately radically minimize their economic scope. In the  meantime, government grants should support research aimed at finding new  ways of wrapping things without paper or any other tree-derived  product. 

2. Governments should remember that natural forest recovery takes many  decades and even hundreds of years, before the biotic pump acquires its  full power. It is much easier to protect forests than to re-grow them.  For example, tree planting in China has nothing to do with forest  restoration; it is doomed to fail. To completely restore a degraded  ecological communities is as difficult as cloning a mammoth in an  elephant egg cell. Ecosystem medicine and health care have not yet  developed as a science. In the meantime, we should urgently conserve all  that we have now. 

3. Efforts should be coordinated to protect both boreal and tropical  forests. In countries with strong democracy society is more efficient at  achieving nature conservation goals. It becomes possible for society to  mitigate the negative environmental impact of even large-scale  development projects aimed at resource extraction from yet widening  areas. For example, in Canada the implementation of Plan Nord aimed at a  massive intensification of resource extraction in Quebec was forced by  people to include conservation of 50 percent of the affected territory,  including a vast area with boreal forests, in an undisturbed state. This  positive experience should be studied and shared among nations. 

4. In an overpopulated world forests and the environment cannot be  saved. Family planning is the main strategic tool to conserve forests  and restore environmental sustainability. 



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(12/19/2011) Drought and erratic rains could lead to further food  scarcities in Africa warns the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).  The WFP singles out South Sudan, the world's newest nation, and Niger as  nations of particular concern. Earlier this year famine killed scores  of people, including an estimated 30,000 children, in Somalia. 


Is the Russian Forest Code a warning for Brazil?

    (12/19/2011) Brazil, which last week moved to reform its Forest Code,  may find lessons in Russia's revision of its forest law in 2007, say a  pair of Russian scientists. The Brazilian Senate last week passed a bill  that would relax some of forest provisions imposed on landowners.   Environmentalists blasted the move, arguing that the new Forest Code —  provided it is not vetoed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff next  year — could undermine the country's progress in reducing deforestation.  


Evidence mounts that Maya did themselves in through deforestation 

    (12/08/2011) Researchers have garnered further evidence for a smoking  gun behind the fall of the great Maya civilization: deforestation. At  the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference, climatologist Ben Cook  presented recent research showing how the destruction of rainforests by  the Mayan ultimately led to declines in precipitation and possibly  civilization-rocking droughts. While the idea that the Maya may have  committed ecological-suicide through deforestation has been widely  discussed, including in Jared Diamond's popular book Collapse, Cook's  findings add greater weight to the theory.  


Converting rainforest to cropland in Africa reduces rainfall

(09/19/2011) Converting West African rainforests into cropland reduces  rainforest in adjacent forest areas, reports research published in Geophysical Research Letters.  


Chart: US suffers record drought

(08/01/2011) An exceptional drought is still scorching major parts of  Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. A new report from the  National Drought Mitigation Center finds that over July, nearly 12  percent of the US saw exceptional drought conditions, the highest record  since monitoring began a dozen years. Exceptional drought is the worst  possible on a 5-scale drought scale.  


An undamaged Amazon produces its own clouds and rain 

(09/21/2010) Researchers recently traveled to the remote Brazilian  Amazon to investigate how clouds are formed and rain falls in an  atmosphere unburdened by human-caused pollution. Studying the  atmospheric aerosol particles, which impact cloud formation and  particles, above a pristine forests, researchers discovered that when  left alone the Amazon acts as its own 'bioreactor': clouds and  precipitation are produced by the abundance of plant materials.   


World failing on every environmental issue: an op-ed for Earth Day

    (04/22/2010) The biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, the  deforestation crisis: we are living in an age when environmental issues  have moved from regional problems to global ones. A generation or two  before ours and one might speak of saving the beauty of Northern  California; conserving a single species—say the white rhino—from  extinction; or preserving an ecological region like the Amazon. That was  a different age. Today we speak of preserving world biodiversity, of  saving the 'lungs of the planet', of mitigating global climate  change. No longer are humans over-reaching in just one region, but we  are overreaching the whole planet, stretching ecological systems to a  breaking point. While we are aware of the issues that threaten the  well-being of life on this planet, including our own, how are we  progressing on solutions?  


Drought crippling southwest China, millions without drinking water

(03/22/2010) Over 50 million people are affected by a severe drought in  southwest China, according to Xinhua, the nation's state media. The lack  of rain and unseasonably high temperatures has also left 16 million  people without easy access to drinking water.  


Healthy coral reefs produce clouds and precipitation

    (03/03/2010) Twenty years of research has led Dr. Graham Jones of  Australia's Southern Cross University to discover a startling connection  between coral reefs and coastal precipitation. According to Jones, a  substance produced by thriving coral reefs seed clouds leading to  precipitation in a long-standing natural process that is coming under  threat due to climate change.  


Decline in fog threatens California's iconic redwood ecosystems

(02/15/2010) A surprising new study finds that during the past century  the frequency of fog along California's coast has declined by  approximately three hours a day. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  the researchers are concerned that this decrease in fog threatens  California's giant redwoods and the unique ecosystem they inhabit. 


Air pollution in China reduces rainfall

(08/31/2009) Air pollution in eastern China over the past half century  has reduced rainfall and exacerbated the risk of drought and crop  failures, reports a study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.  


Massive deforestation in the past decreased rainfall in Asia

    (06/25/2009) Between 1700 and 1850 forest cover in India and China  plummeted, falling from 40-50 percent of land area to 5-10 percent.  Forests were cut for agricultural use across Southeast Asia to feed a  growing population, but the changes from forests to crops had unforeseen  consequences. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences links this deforestation across Southeast Asia with changes in the Asian Monsoon, including significantly decreased rainfall.  










 CITATION:
Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com (February 01, 2012). New meteorological theory argues that the world's forests are rainmakers. http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0201-hance_interview_bioticpump.html 


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