Coastal (Sydney??) forests Make Rain for Broken Hill

[Michaelangelica]

An article from New Scientist this month, has astounding implications, especially for Australia.
Unfortunately I left the article on the train. Fortunately most of it is on the web
Rainforests may pump winds worldwide - environment - 01 April 2009 - New Scientist

As I understand it, the premise is, that coastal forests cause not just local rain but far inland rain as well..
Once coastal rain falls air pressure there decreases; this sucks in moist sea air further inland, where forests make more rain; this causes a drop in air pressure resulting in further inward movement of moist air. And this process just gets repeated and repeated, drawing moisture and rain further and further inland.
The magazine had a neat little graphic explaining it all much better than words. if anyone has it can you scan it in here?
This is how some Russian Scientist believe coastal forests suck precipitation (rain) further and further inland.
In Australia the forests we are chopping down are the coastal ones.
The inland is getting dryer.
Australia is like a huge wagon wheel with 'the mud on the edge' the major centres of population. We like to live on the coast, build hot cities made of concrete- spread out-a car oriented society- like LA.

It may be that aboriginal burning of coastal forests over 40-60,000 years (pick a number) may have dried out the continent.

The theory suggests that past civilisations could have had a much greater impact on global climate than we thought. Australia once had forests but is now largely desert. Gorshkov and Makarieva argue that Aborigines burning coastal forests may have switched the continent from wet to dry by shutting down its biotic pump.

The implications of this theory/model are far reaching

• Whatever cleared land left on coasts should be made into Permaculture forests immediately[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• A Permaculture Forest Council Zoning should exist[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• Oz Outback farmers can blame the city dwellers for their drought?[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• We may need to green our cities post haste[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• get those city indoor plants and roof gardens going?[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• should we be clearing coastal land to build a sea of concrete roofs, now, with new planning laws, no room to grow even a small tree. "No backyards", is the newGovernment Planning religion/ mantra. Pack 'em in; as many, and as close as possible.[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• should we be wood-chipping coastal forests for the Japanese to make origami?[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• how does this affect the Great Barrier reef and its aquifers?[/*:m:2snslm8t]
• should we be moving city development inland (more Canberras ! Horror!)[/*:m:2snslm8t]

Of course the implications may be similar in other countries.

However the implications may also be GLOBAL

The implications are global, he adds. "We think some of the recycled Amazon moisture is taken on a jet stream to South Africa, and more maybe to the American Midwest. Gorshkov and Makarieva are looking at the front end of an absolutely critical process for the world's climate."
If their theory is correct, it means that large forests help kick-start the global water cycle.

Climatologists are already worried about the state of the Amazon rainforest. Last month, the UK's Met Office warned that if the planet warms by 4 degrees, 85 per cent of the forest could dry out and die.
If Gorshkov and Makarieva are right, the Amazon will be gone before warming kicks in.
They predict that even modest deforestation could shut down the pump and reduce rainfall in central Amazonia by 95 per cent.The same could happen in the world's other large rainforest regions, such as central Africa.

It's not all bad news. If natural forests can create rain, then planting forests can, too. Sheil says, if forests attract rain, then replanting deforested coastal regions could re-establish a biotic pump and bring back the rains. "Once forests are established, the pump would be powerful enough to water them. Could we one day afforest the world's deserts? Makarieva and Gorshkov's hypothesis suggests we might."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...html?full=true

[gardenlen]

g'day michaelangelica,

i've only glanced through what you posted but the heading says it all for me.

that is why i keep asking why those down south don't plant habitat long before they plant wind farms?? the wind farms will never deliver and if they should it would be too expensive for the masses to afford. and i believe that the clearing of rainforests in indonesia in malaysia impacts our weather (all to grow oil palms for a fuel hungry world not to mention the loss of fauna all the domino effect), look at this season monsoonal trough never realy got going properly never spent the time laying across the north of australia like it should, didn't deliver anywhere near the tropical lows needed to break our droughts. it was late coming and early going.

we live in one world so whatever we do locally affects that one world all hand in glove.

len

[janahn]

old news. you should find most of this explained in Permaculture, A Designers Manual by Bill Mollison from the 1980's. you should also find his references in the same which makes it even older.

which leads me to my point, such facts/proof is good to know, but it is best not to get sidetracked by pursueing single issues. Permaculture is a method of total system design. for Permaculture to have an effect such as mentioned above it has to be relevant to stakeholders: namely landowners/custodians/farmers/graziers...etc otherwise you are a "greenie" making opinions without real life experiences. good to know - challenging to impliment. go and ask any farmer..discuss this...and they will say...I need to make a living first....

Regards Leo Mahon

[Michaelangelica]

old news. you should find most of this explained in Permaculture, A Designers Manual by Bill Mollison from the 1980's. you should also find his references in the same which makes it even older.

which leads me to my point, such facts/proof is good to know, but it is best not to get sidetracked by pursueing single issues. Permaculture is a method of total system design. for Permaculture to have an effect such as mentioned above it has to be relevant to stakeholders: namely landowners/custodians/farmers/graziers...etc otherwise you are a "greenie" making opinions without real life experiences. good to know - challenging to impliment. go and ask any farmer..discuss this...and they will say...I need to make a living first....

Regards Leo Mahon

it was news to me.

So wood chipping coastal forests for the Japanese to make Origami is OK?

Where does your "total system design" start and stop?

[janahn]

HI Mickangle,

out of interest who , besides those who do and sell it , suggested that selling coastal trees to the Japs to make ornamental paper items and other objects with, was a sensible thing to do , ???

Leo

[gardenlen]

g'day michaelangelica,

for you news and that is good your eyes are now open that much wider.

for me it is all common sense we cannot simply allow the clearing of any sort of habitat for profit. permaculture as much as it might be liked to, is simply not going to get through to the errant timber industry and agriculture all supported by the science supported gov's in our world. for those of us who are somewhat in touch we need to have a united front.

the topic was well worth you posting it.

len

[janahn]

part 2 total system design referes to a system under your control. your house/farm or your clients property. if you were the Queen/federal/state government you may include the continent Australia. from my limited expeiences people can really only change what they own/control. if they want to.

i am currently working in the coalface of rural australia developing a "permaculture farm" which is of course my system or total system of influence.

big news in queensland today is "farmers unite to defeat state gov. regrowth/tree clearing legislation"

my personal creed is "make no decisions on behalf of others unless you understand the consequences of your decision"

managed investment schemes that plant trees in monocultures are the perhaps the curse of this nation. many are now facing financial ruin.

my personal opinion is to create a permaculture forest zone as suggested above is very dangerous.

[duanejen]

This is taken from http://candobetter.org/node/1188 blog posted by S Newman......
Original source of article:Rainforests may pump winds worldwide by Fred Pierce, New Scientist, 1st April 2009, issue no.2702.

Whilst many thoughtful people have worked out (but have mostly been ignored) that vegetation, especially forests, create rain, and whilst desertification has been linked to deforestation historically many times, there is a new and robust theory to explain how this may happen.

The theory argues that forests generate winds that help pump water around the planet. This article says that the theory would explain how it rains as much in the interiors of forested continents as on the coasts.

"If correct, the theory would explain how the deep interiors of forested continents get as much rain as the coast, and how most of Australia turned from forest to desert. It suggests that much of North America could become desert - even without global warming."

The New Scientist article reports that "up to half the precipitation falling on a typical tropical rainforest evaporates or transpires from trees. ... Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva of the St Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute in Russia say that forests also create winds that pump moisture across continents."

How can forests create wind?
[Water vapour from coastal forests and oceans condenses into droplets and clouds. The gas takes up less space as it turns to liquid, lowering local air pressure.] Because evaporation is stronger over the forest than over the ocean, the pressure is lower over coastal forests, which suck in moist air from the ocean. This generates wind that drives moisture further inland. The process repeats itself as the moisture is recycled in stages, moving towards the continent's heart (see diagram). As a result, giant winds transport moisture thousands of kilometres into the interior of a continent.

Coastal forests create giant winds that push water thousands of kilometres inland
Huge volumes can be involved.

More moisture typically evaporates from rainforests than from the ocean. The Amazon rainforest, for example, releases 20 trillion litres of moisture every day.

New Scientist reports that Makarieva and Gorshkov told them that, "In conventional meteorology the only driver of atmospheric motion is the differential heating of the atmosphere. That is, warm air rises." "Nobody has looked at the pressure drop caused by water vapour turning to water." The scientists, [whose theory relies on the physics of air movement] have dubbed this the "biotic pump" and claim it could be "the major driver of atmospheric circulation on Earth".

To back up their hypothesis they show how regions without coastal forests, such as west Africa, become exponentially drier inland. Likewise, in northern Australia, rainfall drops from 1600 millimetres a year on the coast to 200 mm some 1500 kilometres inland. In contrast, on continents with large forests from the coast to interior, rainfall is as strong inland as on the coast, suggesting the trees help shuttle moisture inland (Ecological Complexity, DOI: 10.1016/j.ecocom.2008.11.004, in press). In the Congo, for instance, around 2000 mm of rain falls each year at the coast and the same amount falls inland. The same is true in the Amazon, the Siberian Arctic and the Mackenzie river basin in northern Canada. But the US, largely forested until recently, now seems be headed for desert. Makarieva and Gorshkov told New Scientist that without rapid reforestation "the degrading temperate forests of North America are on their way to desertification".

Read the full article here Consider reading, as well, two extraordinary books about deforestation and history. One is David Montgomery, Dirt, the erosion of civilisationsUC Press, 2008 and the other is John Perlin, A Forest Journey: The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization, Harvard Univ Press, 2007. Dirt is the best written, but both are packed with information which will advance your state of knowledge way ahead of most environmentalists' and situate your understanding in a very wide context.

[duanejen]

On the east coast of Australia there used to run forests that were hundreds of feet high in places and travel for miles inland from the coast. These forests rang from Melbourne to Cape York.

There were houses all along the east coast that were covered in mould, on the east side of the house.

A great thermal existed called the Tanami Wind. This was the exact process that occured as described in the articles quoted above. This thermal wind was produced by the great forests along the east coast that transpired vast quantities of water vapour during the day as as it condensed at night and cooled it drew warmer moist air from the sea sending it thousands of miles inland carrying life giving rain.

Its the reason that Australians inventeded the cavity brick wall.

TODAY IT NO LONGER EXISTS....The vegetation has all but been removed....which cooled the land and created the thermal wind which was caused by the temperature gradient between the warm sea air and the cooler air over the vegetated landscape.

In Mataranka in the NT the ancient dreamtime stories of the Mangarayi and Yungman tribes describe a wind sweeping in from the east that created the area.

[janahn]

Another part of the forest / rain equation is the canopy that creates turbulance from wind as it travels accross. the turbulance causes compression of moisture as the wind acts like a series of pistons. so take out the inland forest and a loss of effect is also experienced. along with all of its other beneficial attributes....

a potential pattern approach is the creation of tree belts on contours with the distance between belts to be no less than 10 times the height of the belts, so trees that are say 10 m tall x 10 = 100 m apart. this creares max turbulance. see more in Mollisons Designers Manual. the belts then may be thick or thin.

just a small part of the equation but the benefits may be amplified by design, species selection, land use...........

Leo M