COOLING CLIMATE CHAOS
We can stabilize the climate and cool the planet
Greenhouse gases heat up the planet, but they are not the major driver of climate change. Another huge factor is largely overlooked. It is water in its movements and changes of state (ice, liquid water and vapor) as it interacts with plant life and the atmosphere.
This interaction has enormous stabilizing and cooling effects. Once we understand the full force of plants and the water cycle, we can actually confront the climate crisis with a whole new set of measures.
Frontloading vigorous protection and regeneration of nature around the world together with massive increases in regenerative agricultural practices and agroforestry will restore a balanced climate, calm the weather and cool the planet!
Plants cool through evapotranspiration, turning water into vapor that rises up to the higher atmosphere, bringing large amounts of heat with it. With that, plants cool the Earth’s surface. At the same time, plants also send up a variety of biological aerosols, which serve as the condensation nuclei for water droplets. This helps the water vapor to condensate on these aerosols, forming clouds. Plants seed clouds! Half of the energy that the water vapor releases at the moment of condensation leaves the atmosphere into space. One gram of water vapor releases 2260 joules of heat when it condensates. This is the great cooling pump of the planet. Heat exits the earth, and the earth cools down. As vapor condenses into clouds, they also cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight back into space. Condensation into clouds also produces not just rain but also wind. A thousand liters of vapor becomes one liter of rain, creating a vacuum that generates the wind. The condensation nuclei cause moderate rains, minimizing extreme rainfall and flash floods. In large forests these processes are so strong that it creates a powerful biotic pump, drawing in humid air from the oceans, bringing rains deep land inwards. An intact biotic pump averts droughts by extending the rainy season while bringing moderate rains. This also increases the production of living biomass which in turn draws down carbon. Heatwaves, droughts and flash floods are avoided when the rain is created around these biological aerosols. When the rain falls on healthy soils, with thriving societies of bacteria and fungi, there is little or no erosion. Healthy soils work as sponges absorbing the water to be released slowly with some of it percolating into the aquifers, where it can be retained for a long time. Levels of sedimentation washed into the ocean and inhibiting marine vegetative growth are reduced significantly. Similarly, healthy marine ecosystems contribute to cloud formation and sequester massive amounts of carbon in the form of shells, corals, plankton and marine vegetation and counteract ocean acidification as well.