Look forward to listening to this! It's coming at a time where I find myself trying to hold this story alongside other narratives coming from the prescribed burn space about vegetation drinking groundwater which don't feel like a fully holistic way to approach things. Is there a way to think about watersheds, precipitationsheds, foodsheds, and firesheds altogether?
Thanks Apha for this exciting rendition of our traveling parade of water. Yes our organization is witnessing a similar natural phenomena,but i'ts not natural, more like a man-made problem. A thousand miles to Southwest of Greenland, all winter long warmer water flows from generating hydro plants, this water is from former now impounded rivers, now reservoirs of Northeastern Quebec. The thermal profile of warmer waters hit severe cold leads to the creation of huge clouds of water vapor. This water vapor abruptly is carried into the atmosphere, on wintertime predominant Southwesterly winds, and is deposited right over the Southern end of Greenland. local weather stations there are detecting clear increases in precipitation and temperature Where weather stations are showing a noticeable change. This may have something to do with the Greenland Ice sheet beginning to have real signs of melting .
Anyone interested in a deeper dive into dams and the problems that are inherently being ignored by scientists. Our small organization:
New England Canadian Provinces Alliance, hydrodamtruth.org is leading a series of webinars Starting March 12. I’m kicking off/ leading the 1st in the series March 12 "Damming Rivers, Melting Sea Ice, And Waming Oceans” Certainly would appreciate your involvement. below link to registering for the event
Fascinating conversation. More and more pieces are coming together to show just how intricate and intelligent and necessary living systems are from a water standpoint. It's as Millan said, "water begets water," through life. I'm working to try and stop the US forest service from cutting mature and old growth forests as a fire reduction scheme. This information helps. Interestingly, the pro logging scientists hardly ever talk about hydrology, unless it's to paint trees as bad for taking water from rivers.
I believe one of our biggest challenges is that so many environmentalists have tunnel vision. We all know the climate scientists who are fixated on CO2 emissions, but who don't consider deforestation or soil degradation as being climatic issues. The same thing with some hydrologists who only look at trees in a specific catchment and who only see the transpiration of water that might have flowed in that stream - they don't see that without the regional trees there would have been much less rain and therefore no water to either transpire or to support stream flow. We HAVE to start thinking in terms of complete systems.
Interesting though the processes (of plants drinking water from the air, and indeed the hydraulic lift of groundwater to the surface (through tree roots) for re-distribution of water to other plants) they are relatively insignificant compared to the problems of deforestation and soil degradation (causing far too much precious rain to flow straight into the nearest stream, taking irreplaceable top-soil with it). I believe it is in reforestation (of Anastassia's "wise" trees), repairing of soils so that, when our prayers are answered and rain actually falls, it is all absorbed - and held - in the soil, and allowing the water table to recover (so that trees can actually reach sufficient water to transpire in order to enhance the small water cycle) where we must concentrate our efforts. Rain is a non-linear system and therefore a minute gain from one process could have a huge effect, but I argue that there is little point in even discussing plants consumption of water directly from the air, while our continents remain denuded of trees and our soils incapable of receiving what little rain we are still getting.
The redwoods actually get about 1/3 of their water from foliage uptake. So in a California it gets it from the incoming fog . The meteorologist Millan Millan noted that California had a big problem because it was losing its fog which meant its trees were not getting hydrated. I think one of the cause of wildfire in California has to do with redwoods no longer having as much fog to imbibe through foliage water uptake. So it’s an important effect
Look forward to listening to this! It's coming at a time where I find myself trying to hold this story alongside other narratives coming from the prescribed burn space about vegetation drinking groundwater which don't feel like a fully holistic way to approach things. Is there a way to think about watersheds, precipitationsheds, foodsheds, and firesheds altogether?
(Referring to things like https://mavensnotebook.com/2025/01/16/notebook-feature-fire-and-water-how-cultural-burns-boost-streamflows/ "Every time you burn grasses, you’re creating water because you have less plants to draw it down,” Almendariz continues. “The more you burn, the more water you’ll have.”" )
yes we need to understand the fire and water story together
Thanks Apha for this exciting rendition of our traveling parade of water. Yes our organization is witnessing a similar natural phenomena,but i'ts not natural, more like a man-made problem. A thousand miles to Southwest of Greenland, all winter long warmer water flows from generating hydro plants, this water is from former now impounded rivers, now reservoirs of Northeastern Quebec. The thermal profile of warmer waters hit severe cold leads to the creation of huge clouds of water vapor. This water vapor abruptly is carried into the atmosphere, on wintertime predominant Southwesterly winds, and is deposited right over the Southern end of Greenland. local weather stations there are detecting clear increases in precipitation and temperature Where weather stations are showing a noticeable change. This may have something to do with the Greenland Ice sheet beginning to have real signs of melting .
Anyone interested in a deeper dive into dams and the problems that are inherently being ignored by scientists. Our small organization:
New England Canadian Provinces Alliance, hydrodamtruth.org is leading a series of webinars Starting March 12. I’m kicking off/ leading the 1st in the series March 12 "Damming Rivers, Melting Sea Ice, And Waming Oceans” Certainly would appreciate your involvement. below link to registering for the event
Registration link: https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po00000hHWp7IAG&mapLinkHref=
Fascinating conversation. More and more pieces are coming together to show just how intricate and intelligent and necessary living systems are from a water standpoint. It's as Millan said, "water begets water," through life. I'm working to try and stop the US forest service from cutting mature and old growth forests as a fire reduction scheme. This information helps. Interestingly, the pro logging scientists hardly ever talk about hydrology, unless it's to paint trees as bad for taking water from rivers.
I believe one of our biggest challenges is that so many environmentalists have tunnel vision. We all know the climate scientists who are fixated on CO2 emissions, but who don't consider deforestation or soil degradation as being climatic issues. The same thing with some hydrologists who only look at trees in a specific catchment and who only see the transpiration of water that might have flowed in that stream - they don't see that without the regional trees there would have been much less rain and therefore no water to either transpire or to support stream flow. We HAVE to start thinking in terms of complete systems.
great glad you liked it!
Alpha, hope that you might be able to make this webinar. I know that there's lots going on.
Interesting though the processes (of plants drinking water from the air, and indeed the hydraulic lift of groundwater to the surface (through tree roots) for re-distribution of water to other plants) they are relatively insignificant compared to the problems of deforestation and soil degradation (causing far too much precious rain to flow straight into the nearest stream, taking irreplaceable top-soil with it). I believe it is in reforestation (of Anastassia's "wise" trees), repairing of soils so that, when our prayers are answered and rain actually falls, it is all absorbed - and held - in the soil, and allowing the water table to recover (so that trees can actually reach sufficient water to transpire in order to enhance the small water cycle) where we must concentrate our efforts. Rain is a non-linear system and therefore a minute gain from one process could have a huge effect, but I argue that there is little point in even discussing plants consumption of water directly from the air, while our continents remain denuded of trees and our soils incapable of receiving what little rain we are still getting.
The redwoods actually get about 1/3 of their water from foliage uptake. So in a California it gets it from the incoming fog . The meteorologist Millan Millan noted that California had a big problem because it was losing its fog which meant its trees were not getting hydrated. I think one of the cause of wildfire in California has to do with redwoods no longer having as much fog to imbibe through foliage water uptake. So it’s an important effect