The best defense a forest has is it's full canopy. There is a 30 minute video about the rainforests and the first scene is about the tree canopy. Full and letting little to no light shine through to the Earth's surface.
There are few rainforests on the North American continent, but, there are a few. They are important for the same reasons any forest is important, they are a carbon sink and PRODUCE soil when they die and fall to the forest floor. Trees become soil when they die.
The forest floor is not quite as important, but, when covered with dead leaves and the like insulate the forest floor from evaporation.
What exists today is a very dry troposphere where water vapor has moved upward in altitude. That creates a hostile world for forests. Forests transport their nutrients from the soil to the very top of it's canopy through a water transport system. Every millimeter of a tree is serviced by a water transport system no different than the water pipes of modern America. The system is simple, but, at the same instance very complex in it's transport.
This water transport system has it's final destination the very tip of the tree leaf.
To the right is a Beech tree leaf. It is very easy to see in this system as is the case with every tree leaf the VEINS that carry the nutrient dense water.
The tree actually let's it's water transport system flood and then the water leaving the tree leaf due to abundant water, evaporates into the air surrounding the tree.
This life process of trees is called "evapotranspiration" (click here). Evapotranspiration provides water vapor to the atmosphere and in some FOREST systems, such as those found on the California coast, create their own clouds.
That water vapor is very important to the forest. When the air is very dry the evaporation of the water at the tip of the leaves is quick. The water vapor does not LINGER to provide still yet another buffer to fire.
Those defenses on a hot planet are very challenged. Is it not so much the tree processes have changed in ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE, it is the water vapor that has changed. That is why there is now a 24/7/365 danger to forests.
I remind forests are not only extremely valuable carbon sinks, they are the home to wildlife vital to life on Earth.
April 12, 2016
By Matt Richtel and Fernanda Santos
The first Alaska wildfire of 2016 (click here) broke out in late February, followed by a second there just eight days later.
There are few rainforests on the North American continent, but, there are a few. They are important for the same reasons any forest is important, they are a carbon sink and PRODUCE soil when they die and fall to the forest floor. Trees become soil when they die.
The forest floor is not quite as important, but, when covered with dead leaves and the like insulate the forest floor from evaporation.
What exists today is a very dry troposphere where water vapor has moved upward in altitude. That creates a hostile world for forests. Forests transport their nutrients from the soil to the very top of it's canopy through a water transport system. Every millimeter of a tree is serviced by a water transport system no different than the water pipes of modern America. The system is simple, but, at the same instance very complex in it's transport.
This water transport system has it's final destination the very tip of the tree leaf.
To the right is a Beech tree leaf. It is very easy to see in this system as is the case with every tree leaf the VEINS that carry the nutrient dense water.
The tree actually let's it's water transport system flood and then the water leaving the tree leaf due to abundant water, evaporates into the air surrounding the tree.
This life process of trees is called "evapotranspiration" (click here). Evapotranspiration provides water vapor to the atmosphere and in some FOREST systems, such as those found on the California coast, create their own clouds.
That water vapor is very important to the forest. When the air is very dry the evaporation of the water at the tip of the leaves is quick. The water vapor does not LINGER to provide still yet another buffer to fire.
Those defenses on a hot planet are very challenged. Is it not so much the tree processes have changed in ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE, it is the water vapor that has changed. That is why there is now a 24/7/365 danger to forests.
I remind forests are not only extremely valuable carbon sinks, they are the home to wildlife vital to life on Earth.
April 12, 2016By Matt Richtel and Fernanda Santos
The first Alaska wildfire of 2016 (click here) broke out in late February, followed by a second there just eight days later.
New Mexico has had 140 fires this year, double the number in the same period last year, fueled by one of the warmest, driest winters on record.
And on the border of Arizona and California this month, helicopters dumped water on flames so intense that they jumped the Colorado River, forcing the evacuation of two recreational vehicle parks.
Fires, once largely confined to a single season, have become a continual threat in some places, burning earlier and later in the year, in the United States and abroad. They have ignited in the West during the winter and well into the fall, have arrived earlier than ever in Canada and have burned without interruption in Australia for almost 12 months....
