Guide attention to people who are tweeting in ways where they listen and respond to each other civilly, even if they have different viewpoints.
Bring together people of varying viewpoints around a variety of topics – racial issues, gender issues, climate, capitalism, poverty, pharmaceuticals, farming, environmentalism etc, and have them model how they respond to each other in ways they exhibit empathy, understanding the other’s viewpoint, and ways of expressing your own viewpoint that does not denigrate each other.
Then begin to highlight these conversations on twitter.
So create attractor points on twitter where more and more people come in to the discussion in ways that are civil.
Also create a culture in these discussions where practices like Nonviolent Communication, Insight Dialogue, WorldWork, Finding Common Gound, Restorative Justice, are highlighted, so people can go take courses in those techniques, and bring that culture onto Twitter.
In ecosystems, theres an interesting phenomena, where the more species there are, the more biomass the ecosystem has. This is because the more biodiversity there is, the more different types of microhabitats there are, which then create more room for other species.
Humans have been creating more niches that are not aligned with ecosystems, so more urban environments and their concrete, asphalt, carpets, and insulations. These urban ecological niches then breed more jobs and structures that are made of toxic materials, and systems out of sync with nature.
To get back in tune with nature we have to create human ecological niches that can provide jobs and living environments in tune with nature. So niches like cob buildings, cave dwellings, eco courses, permaculture, primitive skill classes, nature coaching, community events in nature, ecorestoration jobs etc. These niches will then attract more humans to them, so that we can begin living in closer sync with nature, and able to create a living by doing so.
There’s a new water paradigm that is both an ancient, and a new way of looking at water. This field, whether we call it watercology, regenerative water, the new water paradigm, or some collectively emergent name, is about understanding how restoring the water cycle can bring back the rain, help with floods, replenish groundwater, and help with water scarcity around the world.
There are variety of claims of this field, and sometimes when I tell them to people they want to know how much this is backed by science. So I have made the beginnings of a reference list. See below.
One of the main claims is that vegetation can help create rain. It does this by evapotranspiring water vapor into the air. This adds to the humidity of the air, so that it can lead to rain… This is somewhat of a surprising claim for some people, so we need some science. After the New Water Paradigm references I listed some papers in the “Evapotranspiration creates rain” about studies that show that evapotranspiration helps contribute to principitation.
Another claim, is that when we degrade the land, and it can no longer retain as much rainwater, where the water goes into rivers and out to the ocean, and less into evapotranspiration, and that when we cut down trees so that they can longer evapotranspire as much, it will lead to droughts because we now have less water vapor in the air. So the next section after that is papers that show this.
Then there is a section on how trees create rain. Studies with isotopes have shown that the water in clouds above the Amazon comes from the trees, and not from the ocean. Also trees release bacteria that can seed the formation of clouds.
There is a claim that fog is an important source of hydration for vegetation, and that urbanization has destroyed our fog,
There is a claim that even when evapotranspiration is not enough, to move the humidity past the dew point, and so create rain, it can still lead to the creation of dew, and that that dew is important to hydrate the landscape.
Dew and fog can hydrate the winds, and the vegetation in a way that it helps prevent wildfires.
Evapotranspiration contributes from 20-100% to rainfall. Dryer areas like California and Northern Africa it contributes less. see map Anderson, B.T., A.C. Ruane, J.O. Roads, M. Kanamitsu, and G. Salvucci, 2008: A new metric for estimating local moisture cycling and its influence upon seasonal precipitation rates. J. Hydrometeorol., 9, 576-588, doi:10.1175/2007JHM968.1 https://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abs/an09000a.html
In some areas of the world, western and central parts of North America, part of the Eurasia mid-latitude, and Sahel in boreal summer and over most of Australia, Argentina, and South Africa in austral summer, evapotranspiration is more strongly coupled with rain :
Zeng, X., Barlage, M. J., Castro, C., & Fling, K. (2010). Comparison of land-precipitation coupling strength using observations and models. Journal Of Hydrometeorology, 11, 979-994. doi:10.1175/2010JHM1226.1 http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/~castro/Reviewedpubs/R-15.pdf
SOIL MOISTURE COUPLING TO PRECIPITATION
If soil can hold moisture longer, then it has an effect on rain.
Dirmeyer, Paul A, C. Adam Schlosser, and Kaye L Brubaker. “Precipitation, Recycling, and Land Memory: An Integrated Analysis.” Journal of Hydrometeorology (2009): 278-288. 2008
DEFORESTRATION LEADS TO LESS RAIN AND MORE WARMING
Sampaio, G., Nobre, C., Costa, M. H., Satyamurty, P., Soares-Filho, B. S., and Cardoso, M. (2007), Regional climate change over eastern Amazonia caused by pasture and soybean cropland expansion, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L17709, doi:10.1029/2007GL030612. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2007GL030612
TREES CREATE RAIN
Water vapor forming clouds over Amazon had water isotopes from trees that are not from ocean.
Jonathon S. Wright, Rong Fu, John R. Worden, Sudip Chakraborty, Nicholas E. Clinton, Camille Risi, Ying Sun, Lei Yin “Rainforest-initiated wet season onset ” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2017, 114 (32) 8481-8486; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1621516114 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/32/8481.abstract.
Shukla, J and Mintz, Y, 1982. “Influence of Land-Surface Evapotranspiration on the Earth’s Climate” Science 19 Mar 1982: 1498-1501. Vol. 215, Issue 4539, pp. 1498-1501 DOI: 10.1126/science.215.4539.1498 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/215/4539/1498
Jonathon S. Wright, Rong Fu, John R. Worden, Sudip Chakraborty,
Nicholas E. Clinton, Camille Risi, Ying Sun, Lei Yin “Rainforest-initiated wet season onset”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Aug 2017, 114 (32) 8481-8486; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1621516114 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/32/8481
Spracklen, D., Arnold, S. & Taylor, C. 2012, “Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests” . Nature 489, 282–285 doi:10.1038/nature11390 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11390
Nair et al-2011-“The role of land-use change on the development and evolution of the west coast trough, convective clouds, and precipitation in southwest Australia” Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (1984-2012) https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2010JD014950
Spracklen, D., Arnold, S. & Taylor, C. 2012, “Observations of increased tropical rainfall preceded by air passage over forests.” Nature 489, 282–285 doi:10.1038/nature11390 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11390
Bacteria found in rain Manohar, Prasanth & Nachimuthu, Ramesh & Gothandam, K M & Sivamangala, Kathikeyan & Thamaraiselvan, Shanthini. (2015). Pseudomonas Syringae: An Overview and its future as a “Rain Making Bacteria.. International Research Journal of Biological Sciences. http://isca.in/IJBS/Archive/v4/i2/13.ISCA-IRJBS-2014-229.pdf
Garcia, Elizabeth S., Swann, Abigail L. S., Villegas, Juan C., Breshears, David D., Law, Darin J., Saleska, Scott R., Stark, Scott C. Garcia (2016). Synergistic Ecoclimate Teleconnections from Forest Loss in Different Regions Structure Global Ecological Responses. PLOS ONE. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0165042
DEW HELP HYDRATE PLANTS IN LANDSCAPE. Dew forms when nights are colder. Nights are colder when there are less clouds and dust.
“Fog,mist, dew, and other sources of water” F.W.Went from Yearbook of Agriculture 1955 Dew forming easier in semi-arid regions, in California. Dew forms easier on colder nights when there are no clouds or dust to prevent soil radiating infrared heat out high to the atmosphere. https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/IND43894544/PDF
Wang, L., Kaseke, K. F., and Seely, M. K.: Effects of non-rainfall water inputs on ecosystem functions, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 4, e1179, https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1179,
2017b
Dew hydrates lichen
GAUSLAA,Y. (2014). Rain, dew, and humid air as drivers of morphology, function and spatial distribution in epiphytic lichens. The Lichenologist, 46(1), 1-16. doi:10.1017/S0024282913000753
Dew forms on grasslands and forested canopies at above 75% humidity
Ritter, F., Berkelhammer, M., and Beysens, D.: Dew frequency across the US from a network of in situ radiometers, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 23, 1179–1197 https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/23/1179/2019/
DEW CAN COME FROM EVAPOTRANSPIRATION
In Indiana, USA and Nice, France isotope analysis showed dew is from evapotranspiration. In desert of Gobabeb, Namibia near coast, the dew was from ocean. Tian, C., Wang, L., Beysens, D., Kaseke, K.~F. 2018 ” Dew origins and formation mechanisms under different climate.” AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts.
TEMPERATURE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN COASTAL AREAS AND INLAND AREAS CAUSES LOSS OF FOG.
“Climate context and ecological implications of summer fog decline in coast redwood region” Johnstone, Dawson PNAS March 9, 2010 107 (10) 4533-4538; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0915062107
URBAN HEAT ISLANDS REDUCE FOG
Gautam,R., & Singh, M. K. (2018). Urban heat island over Delhi punches holes in widespread fog in the Indo-Gangetic Plains.Geophysical Research Letters,45,1114–1121. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL076794
FOG IMPACTS VEGETATION GROWTH
Qiao,
N., Zhang, L., Huang, C., Jiao, W., Maggs-Kölling, G., Marais, E., & Wang, L. (2020). Satellite observed positive impacts of fog on vegetation. Geophysical Research Letters, 47, e2020GL088428. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GL088428
28–66% of the water taken up by plants via roots during the summer drought came from fog rather than residual soil water from winter rain in California using stable isotope tracings
Corbin JD, Thomsen MA, Dawson TE, D’Antonio CM. Summer water use by California coastal prairie grasses: fog, drought, and community composition. Oecologia 2005, 145:511–521. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16001220/
“Coastal fog during summer drought improves the water status of sapling trees more than adult trees in a California pine forest.” Baguskas SA, Still CJ, Fischer DT, D’Antonio CM, King JY. Oecologia. 2016 May;181(1):137-48. doi: 10.1007/s00442-016-3556-y. Epub 2016 Feb 6. PMID: 26852312
“Foliar uptake of fog in coastal California shrub species.” Emery NC. Oecologia. 2016 Nov;182(3):731-42. doi: 10.1007/s00442-016-3712-4. Epub 2016 Aug 27. PMID: 27568025
Using fog collectors for communities:
“Fog as a fresh-water resource: overview and perspectives.” Klemm O, Schemenauer RS, Lummerich A, Cereceda P, Marzol V, Corell D, van Heerden J, Reinhard D, Gherezghiher T, Olivier J, Osses P, Sarsour J, Frost E, Estrela MJ, Valiente JA, Fessehaye GM. Ambio. 2012 May;41(3):221-34. doi: 10.1007/s13280-012-0247-8. Epub 2012 Feb 12.
URBAN HEAT ISLANDS AFFECTS EXTREME PRECIPITATION
Urban heat islands have upward convection of water vapor that forms clouds that get pushed outside the city.
Steensen, B.M., Marelle, L., Hodnebrog, Ø. et al. Future urban heat island influence on precipitation.
Lu, Jiazheng & Zhou, Tejun & Li, Bo & Wu, Chuanping. (2018). Scale Analysis and Correlation Study of Wildfire and the Meteorological Factors That Influence It. Mathematical Problems in Engineering. 2018. 1-10. 10.1155/2018/5739805 file:///Users/macgenius/Downloads/Scale_Analysis_and_Correlation_Study_of_Wildfire_a.pdf
DENSER, OLD GROWTH FORESTS DO BETTER THAN YOUNGER FORESTS AND MANAGED FORESTS AGAINST WILDFIRES
Zald, H.S.J. and Dunn, C.J. (2018), Severe fire weather and intensive
forest management increase fire severity in a multi-ownership landscape. Ecol Appl, 28: 1068-1080. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1710
Old growth forests have more shade, are cooler, and have more moist soil so better protect against wildfires
Lesmeister, D. B., Sovern, S. G., Davis, R. J., Bell, D. M., Gregory, M. J., and Vogeler, J. C.. 2019. Mixed-severity wildfire and habitat of an old-forest obligate. Ecosphere 10( 4):e02696. 10.1002/ecs2.2696
More protected forests have less wildfires
Bradley, C. M., Hanson, C. T., and DellaSala, D. A.. 2016. Does increased forest protection correspond to higher fire severity in frequent-fire forests of the western United States? Ecosphere 7( 10): e01492. 10.1002/ecs2.1492 https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ecs2.1492
Mature eucalyptus forests do better than logged regrowth forests against wildfire
Winoto-Lewin, Suyanti, Jennifer C. Sanger, and James B. Kirkpatrick.
2020. “Propensities of Old Growth, Mature and Regrowth Wet Eucalypt Forest, and Eucalyptus nitens Plantation, to Burn During Wildfire and Suffer Fire-Induced Crown Death” Fire 3, no. 2: 13.
In Santa Ana wind fires, ignition by humans, and wind speed were more significant variables in wildfires than temperature and precipitation
J. E. Keeley, J. Guzman-Morales, A. Gershunov, A. D. Syphard, D. Cayan,
D. W. Pierce, M. Flannigan, T. J. Brown, Ignitions explain more than temperature or precipitation in driving Santa Ana wind fires. Sci. Adv. 7, eabh2262 (2021).
MORE VEGETATIVE COVER HELPS CLOSE WATER AND MATTER CYCLES IN ECOSYSTEM
wetland size related to snow runoff in Yellowstone area
Andrew M. Ray, Adam J. Sepulveda, Kathryn M. Irvine, Siri K.C. Wilmoth, David P. Thoma, Debra A. Patla, Wetland drying linked to variations in snowmelt runoff across Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks, Science of The Total Environment, Volume 666, 2019, Pages 1188-1197, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719307946
EVAPOTRANSPIRATION : WETLANDS > RICE > PASTURE/AG LAND
Elke Eichelmann, Kyle S. Hemes, Sara H. Knox, Patricia Y. Oikawa, Samuel D. Chamberlain, Cove Sturtevant, Joseph Verfaillie, Dennis D. Baldocchi,
The effect of land cover type and structure on evapotranspiration from agricultural and wetland sites in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta, California, Agricultural and Forest Meteorology,
We can work locally with the land to bring back the rains in drought ridden areas.
Here are the Principles of Rain Restoration
When the percentage of water vapor reaches a saturation point (also called dew point) in the air it condenses into liquid water drops
This saturation point decreases with temperature decrease.
Clouds form when water vapor cools below the saturation point.
The most common way for water vapor to cool is when air rises from the ground. A parcel of air expands in size as it rises, while not losing energy to its surroundings (called an adiabatic process). In the process the temperature of the air cools.
If there is a low pressure up in the atmosphere at the troposphere height, this will cause the air below to rise. (Thats why low pressure systems are associated with rain)
When a water condenses to form a cloud, it creates an area of lower pressure, and amplifies the updraft, bringing up more water vapor.
The amount of : water vapor in the air = the amount blown in + the amount being evapotranspired from the vegetation and ground – amount blown out
In humid areas it is easier than in dry climates, for the evapotranspiration of water to help the amount of water vapor in the air go above the saturation point, and thus create clouds. Thus growing vegetation in a humid area will have more effect on the local rainfall.
When water condenses it forms small liquid droplets that stay up in the air, ie clouds. The droplets weigh too little to fall to the earth. They have to increase in size a million times before they are heavy enough to fall.
A warm cloud is a cloud above 0 degree celsius. Larger droplets can form through air turbulence that brings together the droplets. The process is called collision and coalescence. Larger droplets can also form when droplets of different electrical charges attract each other.
A cool or cold cloud has part or all of its temperature below 0 degrees celsius. Water vapor that remains water vapor below 0 degrees is called supercooled. Both ice crystals and liquid water drops form. Under certain conditions the ice crystals can grow larger from the supercooled water vapor. They then start falling, and as they get to warmer temperatures on the way down they can turn into rain.
Particles in the air, called aerosols, can help the droplets nucleate and become larger droplets.
Aerosols also reflect sunlight and so increase the temperature of the troposphere. Temperature increase increases saturation point, which means condensation is less likely.
The combination of the nucleating effect and temperature-raising, sunlight-reflecting effect of aerosols means that its complex whether aerosols increase or reduce rain. {The IPCC considers the aerosol-cloud-climate coupling one of the least understood areas of climate change}
Air pollution is made of small aerosols, the water droplets would become larger than if no aerosols, but not large enough to fall as rain. These become haze, which increases the temperature. In dry climates, the net effect is that there is less stratocumulus and small cumulus clouds, and there is less rainfall downwind of where air pollution is released. [ See Case Study: California air pollution]
Aerosols increase rainfall in deep convective clouds. Deep convective clouds can release large amounts of rainfall [Ref: Khain, Moshe, Pokrovsky 2008]
Aerosols in general may decrease rainfall in dry climates, and increase rainfall in humid ones [Khain,Moshe,Pokrovsky 2008]
Bacteria act as aerosols, and can nucleate water droplets at higher temperatures. These bacteria have been found more in the atmosphere over row crops and desert areas. The percentage it makes up of aerosols, and whether the bacteria makes a significant contribution to rain is debated. {ref: Morris 2013}
Lichen and moss release biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOC) that may help seed rain. {ref: Fang et al}
Fungi release fungi spores that may help seed rain.
There is a soil moisture – precipitation coupling. Wetter soil creates more rain, and dryer soil creates less rain. As soil moisture increases more evapotranspiration happens, which leads to more rain, which leads to more soil moisture. This is the local small water cycle {see Kravcik et al}. The small water cycle is defined to be the movement of water in a closed loop in the local area. Conversely as soil moisture decreases , this leads to less evapotranspiration, which leads to less rain. So there are two attractor points for the system. {There is evidence for this in a number of papers Kim Wang 2012, but also there are other papers that say there is not a soil moisture – precipitation coupling, Ford, Rapp,et al, 2015}
Vegetation can harvest rain to bring it into a small water cycle. Vegetation can transpire enough water vapor, to help push the total amount of atmospheric water vapor to a point where it condenses and forms rain. Incoming water vapor from ocean winds, can then be brought in to increase soil moisture. If this effect is large enough, it can shift the soil moisture – precipitation coupling to the wet soil-more rain feedback loop. { see case study Nebraska, Central Valley California}
Trees can help slow the wind speed down, which keeps evapo-transpired water vapor over the vegetation where it came from, and thus help create a small water cycle.
Water can also move in a wandering small water cycle , where it moves from soil to atmosphere and back, but while shifting its location. So the water can get blown long distances in the air. It descends as rain, and can then evapo-transpire back up, or it can then flow down rivers for long distances, and onto river banks, floodplains, or wetlands where it then traverses back up.
Wetlands have high evapotranspiration rate compared to normal vegetation. Historically a significant percentage of land on earth was wetlands. Restoring rivers and allowing them to overflow, can create large amounts of wetlands. Wetlands increase evapotranspiration, and thus precipitation.
Restoring rivers by taking out levees and concrete river banks, taking out dams and hydropower, increasing beavers, and restoring wetlands, can increase the wandering small water cycle and shift a continental region into a wetter attractor point, where there is more rain.
Increasing soil moisture, by increasing its sponginess with polycrops, non-tilling, compost teas, and by increasing the amount of water diverted it into it with animal footprint indentations, dead biomass and earthworks (swales, keyline, gabion, berms, terraces, ponds) can then increase the amount of small water cycles and medium water semi-cycles.
Earthworks, lakes and wetlands can help guide water into the groundwater.
There is a groundwater-precipitation coupling. Water underground helps soil and plant stay hydrated, which water then evapotranspires to create rain, which can then seep back into the soil and groundwater. Aquifers can feed springs, which feed rivers to keep them running into dry season. And rivers can help keep the ecosystem hydrated.
Slowing down the rate at which freshwater flows back out to the ocean, keeps more freshwater over land, which then leads to more water available for evapotranspiration and precipitation.
The earth is a thermodynamic non-equlibrium system. The small and large water cycles are fluctuations that form dissipative structures.
The water cycles are more ordered systems ( dissipative structures) with lower entropy, which means that the earth has to dissipate greater entropy by the second law of thermodynamics. This entropy dissipation is done by turning uni-directional inward coming solar radiation turning into multi-directional (higher entropy) outward going infrared radiation.
The fourth law of thermodynamics by Fleck and Morel says “Systems increase entropy at the maximum rate available to them”. A small water cycle increases the rate of entropy generated in the outgoing infrared radiation. So the earth system seeks to maximize small water cycles.
Rainfall vs area size of rainfall follows a fractal scaling law that mimics the scaling law of earthquakes. Smaller earthquakes trigger larger earthquakes. In a similar way smaller rainfall events, can through air turbulence trigger larger rainfall events. This kind of behavior is called self-organized criticality. {ref: Wang, Huang 2012, and Peters 2002 on self-organized criticality, and Lovejoy, Mandelbrot on fractal rain, Minkel }
Borneo : Willie Smits lead a reforestration effort that planted about 4 square miles, and increased the amount of rain by about 25%, and cloud cover 10%
Central Valley California : Aquifers have been draining to feed water for crops, which feed significant amount of USA. California has decreased rainfall, while Central Valley is relativity constant. So crop transpiration may be playing a role in create rain.
Loess Plain : A desert the size of France was restored to more growth in China. The goats and sheep were constrained to stop eating all the vegetation as it grew. Terraces and berms were built to guide rainfall into soil. And large replanting process happened using thousands of villagers. Rain came back to region
Al Baydra : Neal Spackman led project to replant a desert area in Saudi Arabia with very little rainfall, by creating swales. Because the area had its atmosphere constrained by the mountains, when the plants transpired water into the air, it stayed in the area, so it could then rain in same area, and feed the small water cycle https://soundcloud.com/user-193856180/episode-002-neal-spackman
Fang et al An increase in the biogenic aerosol concentration as a contributing factor to the recent wetting trend in Tibetan Plateau https://www.nature.com/articles/srep14628
There are ways to we can work with restoring the water cycle to help with climate change. We can lessen extreme weather, increase rains in drought-ridden areas, slow floods, and cool the planet. We can gather people in our local bioregional, watershed area to restore the water cycle, we can gather them into local Watershed Wisdom Council, that then coordinate with a global network of such councils…
I have been working on a set of principles of how the ecosystem, water cycles, and climate interact. Here is version 4.4
To begin with we have to understand the roles of the various actors in the water cycle:
Water : transports heat and cools environments, reflects solar rays and traps heat when it forms clouds, helps plants grow, affects air currents by regulating temperature of the land through plant evaporative cooling and by regulating the temperature of the ocean, carve geological features as rivers, moves around organic matter and sediment through river flow which then influences where plants grow.
Plants: Transpire the water into the air, increase soil’s ability to absorb water, slow the flow of water and rains so it can seep into the soil, provide biomass when dead to build the soil, is food for microbes
Soil: Absorbs the rainfall, feeds the plants, guides the rain to the aquifers
Microbes: Make air pockets in the soil so it can absorb more water, break down plant matter into smaller molecules which are food for new plants, in the air microbes can seed rain at higher temperatures than dust
We define here
Large water cycle : The water moving from ocean, to the air, to inland, to river, back to ocean.
Small water cycle: The water moving locally in closed loops from trees to air to soil to trees.
Medium water cycle (this concept still up for debate): The water that moves over land, in larger distances than the small water cycle, can go from watershed to watershed. The water goes from rainfall that goes to creeks and rivers, which then hydrates vegetation on the river banks, or overflows into floodplains where it hydrates vegetation there, the vegetation then transpires water into air where it gets blown around.
1. Vegetation harvests water from the horizontal flows of water vapor in the atmosphere.
2. Vegetation releases bacteria and spores that help, along with dust particles, seed water vapor condensing into clouds.
3. Increasing vegetation. and decreasing the amount of asphalt and concrete, can bring back rains in areas of low air moisture content, and increase small water cycle flow.
4. Increased amount of small water cycles (where vegetation transpires water to from rain which then waters the vegetation) restore the balance of water between land and sea, slowing the net outflow of water from land to sea
5. Increased medium water cycles keep water overland and hydrating vegetation, and slows net outflow of water from land to sea
6. Dew, formed from water vapor condensing in the night, can hydrate the vegetation.
7. Heat flows from hot to cold. This causes air, and its accompanying water vapor, to also flow. Temperature gradients are the motor which drives atmospheric flow.
8. The sun heats up bare land more, so de-forestration shifts the horizontal heat gradients, which then drive more turbulent airflow on earth, creating more sudden storms and floods.
9. Vegetative transpiration regulates the vertical temperature gradient through evaporative cooling and heat releasing water condensation.
10. Lowering the vertical temperature gradient calms the atmospheric currents. Heat flux through the eye of hurricane drives the hurricane. Lowering the vertical temperature gradient over land, means less power to drive the hurricane, which means the hurricane decays faster over land.
11. Microbes and fungi can increase the amount of water soil absorbs.
12. Dead biomass and earthworks placed in the path of rain, can help soil absorb the water.
14. Increased soil sponginess can lessen floods by directing the water into the ground
15. Increasing soil carbon increases water retention in soil
16. Biomass is atmospheric carbon sequestered via photosynthesis
17. Increased soil sponginess leads to aquifers refilling more
18. Aquifers at higher levels lead to rivers running into dry season longer.
19. Increased soil hydration can lessen wildfires.In relation to man-made structures
20. Aqueducts diverting water from one bioregion to funnel to bigger cities can lessen rainfall in those bioregions. If those bioregions are arid, the diversion of water can lead to the cessation of small water cycles, and the dying out of vegetation in that bioregion.
21. Cities can provide more of its own water by becoming sponge cities which create its own small water cycle, where stormwaters flow through soil and wetlands to aquifers below. Wells draw up water to feed its inhabitants. And vegetation transpires water back up to atmosphere.
22. Greening city decreases its heat dome effect. The heat dome alters atmospheric flow of water vapor and air.
23. Dam removal can allow rivers to overflow into floodplains, where more vegetation can grow, which transpired more water vapor into air, and releases more bacteria into air. This water vapor and bacteria may stay put or get blown elsewhere, where it may then condense and form rain.
24. Dam and levee removal, and leaving river-adjacent floodplains wild, can allow waters to naturally adjust their levels, and lessen larger floods in the long term.
25. Hydropower removal can increase river velocity. Higher river velocity allows it to carve wider arcs, which leads to a wider area of hydration of the ecosystem downstream.
THERMODYNAMICS
There are thermodynamic cycles for the water, air, and organic molecules.
Water, as it transpires, goes from liquid form in the plant to vapor form in the air. Then it condenses back into liquid form as rain, goes into the soil, and then after either flowing down a river or not, it goes back into the plant. That forms one thermodynamic work cycle, which is driven by solar power.
The water vapor as it rises, acts like a steam engine, driving the movement of air. That movement of air is mechanical work done by the thermodynamic work cycle.
The water can also after it falls back to earth, can carve out geological features that are the creeks and rivers. That mechanical work is the work done by the thermodynamic work cycle. The creeks and rivers then guide where the water flows.
Water in hurricanes move through a thermodynamic work cycle that can do a lot of work, and move itself around the globe, and create strong winds.
Plants create more complex molecules through photosynthesis, and when they have enough water Microbes break down the complex molecules. The cycling of forms of the molecules is a organic molecule thermodynamic work cycle, that helps the creation of soil.
Plants and microbes can self-replicate, increasing the total amount of thermodynamic work cycles.
Wind patterns and animals disperse seeds, which then lead to new organic molecule thermodynamic work cycles appearing elsewhere to generate new vegetation.
The temperature gradient between ground and cloud level is a key factor in driving extreme weather. The solution to avoiding extreme weather is to lower this gradient with more vegetation, less bare land , less concrete, and less asphalt.
Imagine two flat plates with a spatial gap between them in the lab, with the one on the bottom having a slightly hotter temperature than the one on top.
Heat will flow with a mechanism called convection, which means heat is carried by air molecules moving from place to place. In this case a columns of hot air will be flowing up, and cold air will be moving down next to it, and an oval path. Increase the temperature differential even more and we get turbulence in the air patterns. (its similar to how the water in a pan gets turbulent as the temperature gradient gets larger)
Hurricanes are driven by the temperature differential between ground and atmosphere, as that influences the upflow of heat through the hurricane, which is part of the power that drives the hurricane.
To decrease the temperature gradient on earth, the solution is to grow more vegetation, as vegetation cools the lower level as water evaporates from it carrying some of the heat and releasing it back out at the cloud level when it condenses. Growing more vegetation will lower the amount of air turbulence, strong winds, and hurricanes. The concrete and asphalt of the urban environment heat up a lot more from the solar radiation than vegetation does, so it creates a steeper temperature gradient. Depaving concrete and asphalt and putting in nature, community gardens, food forests etc will help decrease extreme weather. Towns and cities can organize to depave, and regreen their land. When hurricanes hit land, after gaining energy from the ocean, the extra vegetation can help slow it down more than it normally would.
In the case of the two plates in the lab, imagine now we also put some water on the lower hotter plate. And that water evaporates there, and then condenses back at the upper colder plate. We now have water transporting the heat between the two surfaces, and not just air patterns. This means the air does not have do as much of the heat transportation work, and so can remain calmer.
The story of climate change has so far been one of increase in temperature. That has hidden the effects of water because while the water cycle cools the earth at the surface, it also warms it up again at the cloud level, so it seems the net heat change of the water cycle is not that great. However if we retell the story of climate change as also, in addition to temperature increase, to also being about the increase in temperature gradient, then the importance of the water cycle becomes a lot more clear.
I was thinking we could have a field called macro-permaculture, this is permaculture on the size scale where it begins to influence the climate. Its permaculture+metereology.
There are scientific studies that show forests create rain. The water evaporates from the trees, and then high up in the air, coalesces around small biological particles, which also released from the trees, and thus forming rain.
There is also another newer theory called the biotic pump which says that forests create a low pressure system that creates wind and draws in water from the ocean. If there was a corridor of forests leading inland from the ocean there could be rain further inland from the ocean.
Permaculture has a number of methods to then catch the rain, and filter it into the soil and aquifers below, methods like ditches, ponds, beavers, and mycelia. When the water goes into the groundwater table, it stays there longer, and can keep plants hydrated into drought season. Water can come out of springs during the dry season, and help streams to keep running. Rains can then happen during the drought season, thus shifting the meteorological cycles. The water feedback loops are thus altered, shifting the climate
Ponds and swales can catch the rainwater and guide it into the soil, rocks and branches placed in the path of rainwater to slow it so it can seep downward, and beavers build dams that overflow streams so that water enters the floodplains, and then down into the water tables. Mulch and mycelia can enrich the ability of the soil to absorb water. This then shifts the water cycle, it affects when the water moves into the atmosphere, thus shifting the air and rain patterns in those areas.
In China, a desert the size of France has been regreened, through slowing the rainfall with terraces and swales/ditches so it could seep down into the soil, and then planting trees in the more hydrated soil. As the vegetation flowered it brought back the rains.
Most people, including many permaculturists, think of permaculture as something that happens in backyards and small organic farms, not something that can influence the climate, thus permaculture have not been that involved in the climate debate, but if this field of study and work called macropermaculture becomes more well known, then permaculture could become more fully part of the climate movement.
It occurs to me another name to call this Macropermaculture field is Climate Permaculture. That way it can draw the attention of the climate movement more. There are many people with the mistaken view permaculture is only for backyard gardening and small farms.
One way to create change in the world is to through bottom-up, self-organized local communities that are part of a larger global network with a common purpose.
Here are sampling of some of the projects that involve a network of local community actions that I think are currently the most important in helping to evolve humanity into a healthier future, lessens climate change, extracts less from the earth, rebuilds local community, relocalizes our economy thus unties our binds to multinational corporations which are extracting from the environment, and moves us towards being a resilient, zero-waste society. They provide a route for the normal person to contribute in a positive way to building a better eco-social system. These projects are not protest-oriented. Protests focus on getting people in higher up positions to make changes. This is important, but not the focus here. The networks listed here are about making positive change from the bottom up. You can join a node, or start a node. It something you can do for sustainability, beyond the more commonly known acts like recycling, using public transit, and not using plastic bags. In addition these projects provide a new social system for you to enter into, they are community niches, embodying cultural scaffolding for constructing the new work, for you to live in, and create new relationships.
Ecosystem Restoration Camp : These are camps where you can go volunteer to help eco-restore degraded lands. The camps work with permaculture techniques, indigenous methods, watershed management, soil enrichment etc… As of 2021 there are thirty something of these camps around the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec9VEbFiIAAhttp://www.ecosystemrestorationcamps.com
Buy Nothing Project: These are local groups where people post to Facebook things they are giving away, others can then come over and grab them. Its spawned community and an (un)marketplace of second hand goods being redistributed, rather than thrown away. https://buynothingproject.org/
Repair Cafe – A community event where people can come bring their broken stuff, and volunteers help, and mentor them to fix their goods. https://www.repaircafe.org/en/
Slow Money – A locally organized investment network. “Slow Money Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to catalyzing the flow of capital to local food systems, connecting investors to the places where they live and promoting new principles of fiduciary responsibility that “bring money back down to earth.” https://slowmoney.org/
Food Not Bombs – Food not bombs serve food to people in parks and community spaces. “Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer movement that recovers food that would otherwise be discarded, and shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities in 65 countries in protest to war, poverty, and destruction of the environment.”http://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/
Food not Lawns – Self-organizing networks that help people turn their lawns into food gardens. “Using friendship-based community organizing and principles of permaculture, gift economy, and mutual aid, Food Not Lawns has been turning yards into gardens and neighborhoods into communities since 1999, when we were conceived by the Food Not Bombs family in Eugene, Oregon. For more than twenty years small, self-organized groups of grassroots gardeners have been organizing local seed swaps, joining together for garden work parties, and making lots of friends while learning more about the simple act of growing food can radically improve your home, your community, and your life. ” https://www.foodnotlawns.com/
Slow Food ” a global network of local communities who are united by the will to: defend biodiversity, educate the wider world, sustain our efforts and influence the public and private sectors …in order to achieve a food, clean and fair food system for all.” https://www.slowfood.com/
City Repair – Bring community and eco-connection to neighborhoods by activating street intersections as places of gathering, and doing permacultural design in the local urban landscape. “City Repair facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world. City Repair has accomplished many projects through a mostly volunteer staff and thousands of volunteer citizen activists. We provide support, resources, and opportunities to help diverse communities reclaim the culture, power, and joy that we all deserve https://cityrepair.org/
Complexity University Gigatonne Challenge Teams: Local self-organizing teams which work in agile ‘sprints’ to sequester carbon. https://complexity.university/
Gaia University This is a university where you design your own ecosocial regenerative project, and have a peer group, mentors, and project tracking methodology. You pursue your project wherever you are. “Gaia University is an alternative university fostering a purposeful, global community of thoughtful learners and unlearners focused on ecological regeneration and social justice.” https://gaiauniversity.org/
Ecoversities : “There is an emerging knowledge movement that is slowly building all over the world, though it often goes unnoticed by the media and most formal education systems. A part of this movement can be described as a network of ‘eco-versities’—people, organizations and communities who are reclaiming knowledge systems and a cultural imaginary to restore and re-envision learning processes that are meaningful and relevant to the challenges of our times. Although diverse in its origins, these different pedagogical initiatives both critique the existing education systems, and cultivate new practices to regenerate ecological, social and cultural ecosystems, whilst also reflecting on the meanings of ‘home’ as locality and as an ‘economy’: hence the name ‘eco-versities’.” https://ecoversities.org/
Transition Town – This began as a way to activate towns to become more ecological and lower their carbon footprint. Its evolved into a project with people organizing local currencies, sharing projects, crop swaps, repair cafes, gardening collectives etc. “Transition is a movement that has been growing since 2005. It is about communities stepping up to address the big challenges they face by starting local. By coming together, they are able to crowd-source solutions. They seek to nurture a caring culture, one focused on supporting each other, both as groups or as wider communities. In practice, they are reclaiming the economy, sparking entrepreneurship, reimagining work, reskilling themselves and weaving webs of connection and support.” https://transitionnetwork.org/ Transition Streets https://transitionstreets.org/
Global Ecovillage Network – Ecovillages are a community of people living in harmony with the land. “The Global Ecovillage Network envisions a world of empowered citizens and communities, designing and implementing pathways to a regenerative future, while building bridges of hope and international solidarity.” https://ecovillage.org
Circular City Initiative : The circular economy is the idea that the waste of one business can the input of another business eg used coffee grounds from a cafe, can be reused as fertilizer for a gardening company. There does not have to be waste in the system. The Circular City initiative attempts to guide a whole city into the circular economy https://www.circularcityfundingguide.eu/circular-cities/
Sharing City Network – “a grassroots network for sharing innovators to discover together how to create as many sharing cities around the world as fast as possible”, “Imagine a city where everyone’s needs are met because people make the personal choice to share. Where everyone can create meaningful livelihoods. Where fresh, local food is available to all. Where affordable housing and shared transportation are abundant. Where the poor are lifted up, the middle class is strengthened, and the rich are respected because they all work together for the common good.” https://www.shareable.net/sharing-cities-network/
Earth Regenerators : An education platform which leads into building a nodal network of land based eco-restoration projects, bioregional learning centers, and bioregional economies https://earth-regenerators.mn.co
Permaculture : “Permaculture is an approach to land management and philosophy that adopts arrangements observed in flourishing natural ecosystems.” There are local permaculture guild meetings where you can meet permaculturists, and find out about local projects to take part in. Permaculture Design Courses are intensive courses, where students may come to a piece of land for 3 weeks to learn the various techniques of permaculture like design thinking, sustainable living, composting, mulching, rainwater harvesting, passive solar, local economic methods. http://www.permacultureaction.org/http://www.permies.comhttp://www.permaculturenews.org/
Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) “is a worldwide movement to link visitors (WWOOFers) with organic farmers, promote a cultural and educational exchange, and build a global community conscious of ecological farming and sustainability practices. WWOOF started 50 years ago and has grown from a small group in the 1970’s to a worldwide community of hundreds of thousands of people today. As a WWOOFer, you will participate in the daily life of your host, help on the farm, learn about sustainability, experience a new culture and meet new people, and receive free room and board during your stay. As a host, you will open your home to receive visitors who want to connect with organic food, farming and support the sustainability movement.” https://wwoof.net/
ChangeX : This is a metanetwork of networks of local circles/projects. It gives you a list of say groups who are doing micro-granting dinners all over the world, and invites you to start one in your area. Amongst the networks they list on their site neighborhood treeplanting groups, a Slow Streets program to build community in your neighborhood, Urban Thinkscape which transforms public spaces into learning opportunities, river cleanup programs etc… It also allows you to propose your own local social innovation, and see if others around the world want to create similar local projects. https://www.changex.org/us/social-innovations
A. One of the ways to do help permaculture mainstream is to increase the number of places, the number of outposts where the mainstream public can come across, and interact with permaculture.
Libraries, universities, and stores can all become outposts for permaculture
LIBRARIES – Libraries with permaculture gardens and food forests with signs explaining what is going on the garden is a way the public can learn about permaculture. Libraries can be places where not only people can get free books, but also free food from the libraries’ food forest, and free seeds from a seed bank that can be set up at the library. There can also be regular permaculture talks at the library.
If people host their permaculture meetings at the library, over time they can get to know the librarians. The idea for permaculture garden design and seed banks can then be proposed.
UNIVERSITIES – Start permaculture clubs at universities. Then form a university alliance of all the permaculture clubs. The clubs can engage in permaculture projects around town, like eg. helping grow the food forest at the library. They can help design parts of the campus according to permaculture principles. They can share their ideas with other students in the student union, on the boardwalk etc. The clubs can funnel people to Permaculture Design Courses, and to land-based ecovillages for internships. A Permaculture Summer School can be setup as for university students can go to during the summer months. The permaculture club could work with ecology and environmental professors to get some of permaculture curricula into the university curricula. And the permaculture club can work with the urban design department. If students go to college and can get exposed to permaculture we can have a new generation that is more aware of permaculture. There can be setup a program which helps professors, postdocs, and graduates students in the fields of agriculture, ecology, sustainability, hydrology, urban design, civil engineering take a Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Create a more academic PDC, where scientific results are provided why certain permaculture techniques work. Have a section of how permaculture can be used in urban design and civil engineering.
STORES: Permaculture landscapers and design consultants can get stores in malls and downtown areas where they can sell their services. The stores could be setup in a way to demonstrate what permaculture is, by for instance covering the floors with soil, and growing plants there in ways that are more permacultural. There can be educational programs there to explain why permaculture is beneficial and better in many ways than other ways of gardening. Permacultural then becomes seen by more the mainstream shopping crowd. Some of them may become intrigued by permaculture and want to hire a permaculture designer. These stores could sell plants and the services. Its a way of broadcasting the word out about this to the public. And in the store perhaps there could be simple demonstration projects of permaculture principles.
B. Another way to help permaculture go mainstream is to more fully integrate it into the climate movement.
Integrate permaculture into the climate change movement. Permaculture helps sequester carbon to a much higher degree into the soil, so is a solution to greenhouse warming. Permaculture can regreen deserts which then draws down a lot of carbon. In addition permaculture provides solutions to wildfires and flooding. Swales, regenerative grazing, keyline design, natural sequence farming, provide ways the soil can absorb the winter rains, so that it keeps vegetation hydrated into the summer, so it doesnt dry out and create wildfires. And swales are a great way to stop the destruction caused by floods.
Create a field called macropermaculture which studies permaculture on the size scale of bioregions and bigger, and studies how permaculture practices can influence the weather, and large scale flow of water cycles through rivers, soil, aquifers, clouds and oceans.
Create a climate-focused PDC, where the ways permaculture can be used to help stop climate change are emphasized and delineated.
C. Working with social media influencers to create viral challenges like the Ice Bucket challenge for people to do eg. set a challenge for people to increase the richness of their soil, or have teams work to rewild a suburban lawn. Have reality tv shows where contestants have to work in teams to grow a food forest in a community park, or see how much more carbon they can sequester in the soil. Get Tik Tokers and Youtubers who are making climate change videos, to make some videos about permacultures influence on the climate.
D. Create competitions. There is the 100 garden challenge where people were invited to turn their lawn into a garden, and document it, with prizes for the best gardens. This got a lot of people helping each other to garden. One can tweak this idea, and create a 100 food forest challenge, where people are invited to turn their lawn or garden into a food forest. Or they could be Rewild your Garden challenge with a prize for the person who does it best. There could even be 100,000 lawn conversion challenge, where the amount of carbon sequestered through that process would be quite significant.
In India a $60000 prize inspired 4000 villages to practice permacultural raincatchment practices, and soil management to regrow food where it had been dying because of drought-like conditions. Putting up a large prize money like that for the X Prize for the farm or large land that best uses rainwater, and creates the most fertile soil, can get large amounts of farms to switch to permacultural practices.
Permaculture organizations and environmental organizations can partner to put on a competition for the best idea/project to use permaculture to stop climate change. The best projects could then enter into a business/nonprofit startup incubator to launch them.
E. Infiltrate the Design Thinking movement, which is about using design practices to build products and services, and social systems, to have it include permaculture which is applying design thinking to humans relation with nature.
F. Work with people in the homelessness, food justice and food bank system to grow community food forests to provide a free food resource for those in poverty. Food forests can become as much a standard solution as food stamps for those less wealthy.
G. Integrate permaculture more fully into urban design and civil engineering. Find people to study both urban design and permaculture and then go into urban design or civil engineering sector bringing their knowledge. Permaculturists can build relationships with urban planners, city council, waterworks management, architects, working with them to fundamentally reshape the urban landscape. Find ways to give talks at urban planning conferences, civil engineering conferences. Work with the department of water to find integrate permacultural watershed management systems for stormwater and sewage. Then see if permacultural practices can be written into the legal building codes.
Permaculturists can form partnerships with architects, create a Permacultural Architecture Organization which facilitates this networking. These interdiscplinary partnerships can help architects design buildings, and the area around buildings ias permacultural demonstration sites – museums, businesses, city council buildings, sports buildings, gyms can all become permacultural demonstration sites.
H. Get the government using permaculture practices. When you do a cool permaculture project that helps the town, approach the town to make it a normal practice. Burt Lancaster at first illegally cut holes in the curb so rainwater could flow down the street gutters and into the area around street trees to water them. Then he approached the city government to show them what a good idea it was. They then passed a law to make it legal in his town. Then these laws spread to other towns.
In Los Angeles there is huge permaculture rainwater catchment project underway where they depaved a lot of concrete to create a wetlands for the stormwater to flow into it. The wetland helps clean the water, and then it seeps down into LA’s aquifers. When LA residents need water they then can draw it up. In this way as the project expands LA may no longer need to draw their water from other places for away and deplete the water in those places (LA has in the past depleted Owen’s Valley and made it now a dry barren landscape) …. Some of the next steps is to then approach other city governments to emulate what is happening in LA, and make it part of larger strategic plans. This could for instance be made part of the US’s Green New Deal as it fights the affects of drought by not depleting water supplies.
Opencollaboration's Blog 