they're planted and Destroy water when
they're removed so let's start with the
simple structure of a tree as a giant
net for capturing atmospheric moisture
and nutrients the combined surface area
of a trees leaves or needles branches
and Trunks is surprisingly large when
you imagine humid air or fog moving
through the tree and intercepting each
of its surfaces
atmospheric humidity condenses on every
surface of the tree as moist air rolls
through the water is settled out of the
atmosphere and collected by the tree and
it's not only moisture that's caught by
the tree's net it's also fine particles
of dust pollen spores insect bodies bird
droppings and more that are all
collected by the vast net of the tree's
structure so when moisture is collected
by the tree sometimes in the form of
frost when it's cold
it drips off the leaves bringing all of
these atmospheric nutrients with it to
the soil level and down into the tree's
root zones
this humidity harvested by trees can
actually account for a large proportion
of the total precipitation that falls on
a forest and then when the rain comes
the whole surface of the tree is a giant
intercept for falling rain each
raindrops fall is broken when it hits
the tree and splatters into a fine Mist
where the structure of the tree itself
directs the flowing water through it
down the branches and trunk dripping
through the interwoven network of leaves
washing all the dust and pollen and bird
poop gently down into the tree's roots
out the soil below the trees already
spongy from all of the leaf litter and
sheltered environment beneath the tree
so the water soaks through the soil
sponge and is drunk up by the tree's
roots the tree becomes full of water
just like the human body on average is
60 percent water the body of a tree on
average is 50 percent water both above
and below ground in the root system
so imagine a forest on top of a hill so
with 50 of every tree made up of water
you can think of a forest on a hill as
like a Lake's worth of water just
sitting there remember the total canopy
of a forest is intercepting fog humidity
and nutrient-laden dust so it's
collecting water and nutrients even when
it's not raining. But when it rains the
whole canopy breaks the speed of the
raindrops and gently drips the rain
where the tree structure directs it to
and then the spongy soil soaks it up and
The Roots drink it in and what's not
absorbed flows downhill into the creeks
and rivers below. So the hilltop Forest
moderates the time. It takes for water to
move through the hill it slows the
duration that it takes the water to move
down through the landscape and keeps a
big storage of water at the top of the
hill in the form of the forest which
will slowly release water over the
seasons as gravity pulls it down but at
the same time that gravity is pulling
the water down the tree is also pulling
the water up and out of the leaves and
back up into the atmosphere through
evapotranspiration and evaporation and
it's not just water that's rising up and
out of the trees a forest releases many
tiny particles like pollen Leaf dust
bacteria fungus spores that float up
into the air when these tiny particles
encounter moisture floating through the
atmosphere like clouds then the forest
particles provide nuclei for raindrops
to form around
so we have clouds that have formed from
evaporated water over oceans and seas
moving through the atmosphere over land
and then they encounter the air above a
forest which is filled with water vapor
in organic particles and guess what
happens when they all meet
it rains studies in the Amazon showed
that the forest there actually returned
75 percent of its water back into the
atmosphere in amounts high enough to
form their own rain clouds but it's not
just the wet Tropics we're talking about
trees and every climate have a
partnership with the atmosphere trees
collaborate with the atmosphere to
produce rain and snowfall and so the
clouds that you see move overhead are
not just ocean water vapor they're
Forest water as well in fact
forested mountain ranges help to Leap
Frog water from the coasts to the
interior of the continents as water
vapor hops from one mountain range to
the next
the rainfall in the interior of the
continent is dependent on the forest on
the coast so when you remove trees from
this cycle through deforestation you
break the system it rains Less on Barren
land because forests aren't there to
intercept the clouds with water vapor
and raindrop nuclei and when you break
the system on the coasts it then has sad
repercussions for rainfall further
Inland it's called drought remember
trees don't only bring water vapor and
raindrop nuclei into the atmosphere they
also moderate the flow of water down
into the landscape making it more
consistent and steady because the forest
is a giant sponge of water storage so
when you remove that sponge and then the
rain falls the water rushes down off of
bare hillsides quickly below and all at
once and down below the barren Hills you
get floods in The Valleys so my friends
this sorry State of Affairs is what we
call the drought flood cycle and this is
where much of the world is today
long droughts punctuated by short
intense floods and shortly after the
floods are over the droughts start again
but as I've shown in many cases the
course to take is obvious
trees make water
trees moderate the flow of water
forests are part of the circulation of
atmospheric moisture it's really pretty
basic and hence the solutions are basic.
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