What's the real connection between Droughts & Wildfires ?

"There are three things that are never satisfied. There are really four that never say, ‘I’ve had enough!’  These things are the cemetery, the childless mother, the land that never gets enough rain, and Fire that never says, ‘I’ve had enough!’  

Proverbs 30:15-16 (International Children's Bible)

David McNew / Getty Images

I used a children's simplified wording in the above text to help readers understand what was written centuries ago was not only true back then, but even more so today. It describes a reality of certain realities in lifes faced by human beings which are inescapable. You don't even have to accept the bible to agree with what is clearly stated. The common grave of mankind is always hungry and never satisfied for more occupants. Child barreness would be a welcome circumstance to those obsessed with scientific population control by means of eugenics. In a later text at Luke 23:29, a future time of distress is foretold, and the “barren women” it states would be happy, relieved, not having the anguish of seeing their children suffer. I suppose that would be true of our times. Today drought and lack of rain are plaguing many lands all around the globe and the problem is growing and growing as if it's never satisfied. And of course we are experiencing a time of extreme wildfire which is worse today than at any time in the past and fire's hunger (figuratively speaking) seems to never be satisfied. But focussing on the last two subjects, drought (land with no rain) & wildfire, is there really a connection ? Wow, who knew ? Earlier this year, Jennifer Balch, a wildfire ecologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and other researchers published findings that 84% of wildfires are now started by humans as opposed to natural causes (lightning, volcanoes, etc). But wait, it gets worse folks. They also emphatically said this:

"In California, the eastern United States, and the coastal Northwest, people are behind more than 90% of wildfires. And, by starting so many fires, humans are essentially lengthening the fire season, into times of the year when natural causes—such as lightning—don’t play a major role."

Really, the West Coast (California, Oregon, Washington & British Columbia) is at 90% human caused wildfires ??? 😕

Science Magazine: "Who is starting all those wildfires? We are"

During these past four or five years, the world's fire ecology experts have been making connections between these furious wildfires and severe droughts which they insist are making wildfires even worse. Droughts can occur in any climate, whether it's hot or cold, dry or humid. So is that true or false ? Yup, it's true. Same thing is true of wildfires. But have you ever noticed in the literature when these two words are almost always surgically linked together by the fire ecologists, that the word "Drought" almost always preceeds the other word "Wildfire" ? The idea conveyed here being that the droughts are responsible for causing the extreme wildfire events we experience today. But you might be interested to know that surprisingly the words should really be in the reverse. Some of NASA's latest research finds that it is most likely the wildfires and diliberate prescribed burning that have helped to bring on the droughts. On the surface, to average folks it might seem only logical that the higher temperatures & lack of rainfall brought on by climate change are expected to increase the amount of moisture that evaporates from land, vegetation and lakes (basically sucking everything dry), which would also cause rainfall patterns to shift to more drought conditions. Hot temperatures coupled with dry conditions would also seem to increase the likelihood of more extreme wildfires. But now the reverse seems to be the cause and folks should not be surprised. Earlier this year,  January 2017, some researchers from NASA provided proof that it's the Wildfires, especially those whose origin has a human causasation are responsible for less rainfall, hotter temperatures & Climate Change. 

"A periodic temperature shift in the Atlantic Ocean, known as the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation, plays a role, as does overgrazing, which reduces vegetative cover, and therefore the ability of the soil to retain moisture. By replacing vegetative cover’s moist soil, which contributes water vapor to the atmosphere to help generate rainfall, with bare, shiny desert soil that merely reflects sunlight directly back into space, the capacity for rainfall is diminished."  

"Another human-caused culprit is biomass burning, as herders burn land to stimulate grass growth, and farmers burn the landscape to convert terrain into farming land and to get rid of unwanted biomass after the harvest season."

Now this I have found fascinating, the idea of herders burning the land to stimulate grass growth to increase grazing productivity for harvesting the animals for food. Where have we heard this before ? One of the major justifications often cited for prescribed burns is that the ecological Native Americans (considered by many experts as the original environmentalist) burned the landscape to create better grazing for animals they made a living off of. But in view of the new information we've received from NASA, are we to believe this was still a good thing environmentally in view of the consequences referenced below as we continue reading ?

As with overgrazing, fires dry out the soil and stymie the convection that brings rainfall. Small particles called aerosols that are released into the air by smoke may also reduce the likelihood of rainfall. This can happen because water vapor in the atmosphere condenses on certain types and sizes of aerosols called cloud condensation nuclei to form clouds; when enough water vapor accumulates, rain droplets are formed. But have too many aerosols and the water vapor is spread out more diffusely to the point where rain droplets don’t materialize."  

Yup, even in the Earth's great oceans, microscopic organisms, along with other organic particles and salt, are thrown into the atmosphere every time an ocean wave breaks. Identifying the chemical composition of sea spray sheds light on how there is an  ocean-cloud connection, and how ocean biology may impact how clouds form and the climate. So too with the natural volatile organic compounds given off by vegetation. Disrupt any of the natural components which enrich our atmosphere with organic compound particles which act as nuclei for water molecules to form droplets and we get less rainfall and more drought. That apparently is what too much fire does.

For example, in years that had more than average burning during the dry season, measurements of soil moisture, evaporation and vegetation greenness—all of which help to trigger rain—decreased in the following wet season. Even within dry seasons, the amount of water decreased in areas with more humid climates as the burning became more severe.  

Illustration - ScienceDirect.com

Back during the early 1980s in the San Jacinto Mountains of Southern California when we had the heavy winter rainfall seasons caused by the El Niño & Hawaian Pineapple Express moist wind jet stream, I noticed that cloud formation during the following Summer's monsoon season was exceptionally heavy and complete. The main reason was heavy moist ground sturation on the surface from winter storms which lasted for months. It was a very green period where nothing turned brown or dry. After this time with normal or drier winters, summer monsoon cloud formation was more isolated as opposed to solid formation over all land mass. The areas where cloud formation was consistent had to do with an untouched area from development and contained old growth vegetation whether it was forest trees or solid old growth chaparral shrubs. The fragrance of aerosol release was also more powerful in those areas as well. Knowing what we do about aerosol importance as a nuclei particle for droplet formation, it makes perfect sense how mechanical or wildfire removal of such natural biological mechanism would stifle cloud formation and rainfall and if large enough effect, create droughts. If enough localized and regional droughts around the globe come together, then we get climate change. But in all the ideological debates we are fed out there by Climate Change champions, almost no one mentions what the NASA folks have provided here as evidence for climate change. Such information just never seems to be mainstream, but always on the fringes. It's much more sexy talking about factories and Coal/Oil in order to score some political points against one's political enemies, than telling the truth by providing a more complete picture of the present situation.

“The removal of vegetal cover through burning would likely increase water runoff when it rains, potentially reducing their water retention capacity and invariably the soil moisture,” Ichoku said. “The resulting farming would likely deplete rather than conserve the residual moisture, and in some cases, may even require irrigation. Therefore, such land cover conversions can potentially exacerbate the drought.”

NASA Study Finds a Connection Between Wildfires and Drought

Illustration - ScienceDriect.com

The illustration above has been adapted from Luiz E. O. C. Aragão's, “The rainforest’s Water Pump” which teaches us that like many ecosystems where much of the rainfall over tropical forests comes from water vapour that is carried by the atmosphere from elsewhere like oceans and falls over land during the rainy season, there is also a large component of mositure which is ‘recycled’ after the rainy season has passed. During what would normally be the dry season, rainwater is pumped by trees from soil into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration. This water exits the forest trees as evapotranspirated vapour infused with aerosols are pumped into the atmosphere where cloud formation is able to take place and again fall as rain in monsoonal thunderstorms. So the water sources does not necessarily have to come from oceans, but rather the land itself. The atmospheric transport of water vapour into the forest is balanced by the exit of water in the form of vapour and run-off. It has been discovered that the world's present mechanized deforestation reduces this important evapotranspiration and inhibits this water recycling. This decreases the amount of moisture carried away by the atmosphere, reducing rainfall in regions to which the moisture is transported. Decreasing evapotranspiration also leads to increase localized run-off and raises river water levels which increases water loss back to the seas.

Some of us (like me for example) generally take certain things for granted until some excellent responsible research comes along and shakes us out of our soft warm and fuzzy blanket comfort zone of ignorance. I always thought drought made fires worse and climate change makes droughts worse. But clearly (& this makes total sense) humans have brought on the very the climate disruptions and severe drought conditions through their incessant agricultural burning (not to mention the stupidity factor in causing wildfires) and irresponsible land stewardship in general that are the result of healthy old growth vegetation removal. BTW, for a long time now, many trees in the western United States have been putting most of their resources into defensive measures to just survive. Very little offensive strategy has been employed into putting available resources into the production of seeds. But that's the way it is with any organism. When times are good for food & water, then we have population explosions. When times are bad, it's all about survival. Oddly enough regions further north have been experiencing what has happened in Southern California since the 1990s. I used to collect seed and back in the late 90s, many pine nuts were hollow.  In recent years researchers have noticed after most of these major fires, very little in the way of pine seedling reappearances were observed after these fires.

Colorado's wildfire-stricken forests showing limited recovery

Image - University of Colorado Boulder

“It is alarming, but we were not surprised by the results given what you see when you hike through these areas,” said Rother, who earned her doctorate from CU Boulder in 2015 and works as a fire ecologist at Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida.   

Among the most barren sites were those of the 2000 Walker Ranch fire in Boulder County and the 2000 Bobcat Gulch fire in Larimer County, where approximately 80 percent of plots surveyed contained no new young trees.   

“This should be a wake-up call, that under the warming trends associated with human-caused climate change, significant shifts in forest extent and vegetation types are already occurring,” said Veblen. “We are seeing the initiation of a retreat of forests to higher elevations.”   

Previous research has suggested that hotter, more severe fires make it harder for the forest to bounce back by killing mature trees and reducing seed stock. But the study found that even after lower-intensity fires, presumed to have had less effect on mature trees and seed stock, seedlings were still scarce. Hotter, drier areas at lower elevations or on south-facing slopes had the fewest seedlings.

(Source)

animated image - gutenberg.org

The prevailing paradigm in fire ecology within the Scientific Orthodoxy reminds me of those evil stepsisters from the story of Cinderella where they tried cutting their toes off to fit in that Prince's glass slipper. They insist their narrative version must be true despite what the data says to the contrary. As a general rule, what data they do present for their case is often theory ladened, which means that any claimed observations have been inffected by the theoretical presuppositions held by the fire ecology investigator. There's no shaking the blind faith of a determined fire ecologist who insists life evolved in such and such a way through it's Creator fire or that fire is a kind of hallowed tool used by Indians (Native Americans) who are often considered the ultimate in ecosystem conservation. Facts are Native indigenous peoples of the past and their descendents today were and still are equal in every way to the Europeans they first encountered. This includes not only the capacity for love and goodness, but also the inherited tendency towards flaws and imperfection common to every human on the planet. Yes they used fire. A few may have used it as a type of conservation tool, but they had no more control over it than we do now. There is evidence that they also misused and abused fire for war against their bitter enemies (other Natives, not white men), used fire for hunting down prey chasing 100s of them over a cliff at a time, unattended campfires etc. They also used it for agriculture on a smaller scale which brought about localized or regional droughts centuries ago which doomed some ancient empires in Central and South America (Nazca, Maya & Aztecs). Now take a look below at some satellite photos of cloud formation which clearly exists because of the presence of healthy vegetation, no matter what the plant community ecosystem it is. But seriously, note where and over what the clouds form. Trees & Shrubs!

Image - scantours.net

The photo above is Ascension Island in the South Atlantic. This at one time was a true desert (in the true sense) island with almost most no vegetation other than some mosses, lichens, ferns, and small annuals and/or perennials. I reprinted parts of an article about Ascension Island which came out in 2013 by journalist, Fred Pearce, from Yale Environment 360, where he wrote about how a true desert island was basically transformed by19th cebtury British Sailors who brought in plants for gardens and escaped into the wild and by a Bristish Colonial Botanist, Sir Joseph Hooker, who wanted to actually terraform the island and infuence the increase for rain which was almost zero and provided no water supply. That's all changed now as rainstorms come in and even heavy clouds of mist precipitation provide water for natural ponds and streams.

Image - islandholidays.co.uk

Incredibly, not everyone has been pleased with this islands amazing transformation. The political activist environmental group, Center for Biological Diversity, is strongly opposed to such terraforming because the claim of invasive plants taking over and destroying the tiny native ferns and lichens would be wiped out. This has been proven false. I have kept in contact with the island's conservation officer, Stedson Stroud, who has provided photographs of these rare ferns and lichens actually doing much better by growing on the braches and trunks of this non-native vegetation. The non-native have created a healthier environment which has caused such specimens to grow bigger than they did previously on the desert island environment. People on this planet are going to start questioning who and what so-called non-profit organizations they are putting their trust and money into. Here are two links for which I have written about this remarkable island and it's turn around which has valuable climate change solution teaching lessons for us.

Climate Change and Ascension Island

Ascension Island's Green Mountain Cloud Forest Created by Mist ?

NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens

Image - Yann Arthus-Bertrand 

Orinoco River near the Esmeralda,
Amazonas region, Venezuela

Image: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC

The various aerial and satellite images over the past couple of years have fascinated me as to how vegetative land surfaces encourare cloud formation as opposed to bare land or even seas. The picture above shows cloud formation over forest, but not the river. The picture to the right shows cloud formation over these Indonesian islands, but not the surrounding sea. Back in the 1980's a brazilian physicist, Eneas Salati, proved that the rainfall in the Amazon had consequences that are felt across the globe. Only 20–30 % of the rainfall actually stays in the region. Mostly, it evaporates back to the air to be carried by currents to regions such as the Andes, the Atlantic, and the South Atlantic towards South-Africa through phenomena such as cloud formation. If you've followed the news over the past few years, countries bordering Brazil have lost rainfall because of the forest deforestation which has resulted in the dismantling of these cloud formation mechanisms. When large areas are deforested or the forest becomes fragmented, the system of cloud formation breaks down. Put simply, no cloud formation, no rainfall, no rainforest or any other type of vegetated ecosystem.

Some more interesting references:

Science Direct: "Anthropocene" - The significance of land-atmosphere interactions in the Earth system—iLEAPS achievements and perspectives

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: "Born by Bubbles, Destined for Clouds"

Then there's always that one anomalous Ponderosa Pine discovery somewhere out in Nature observed giving live birth to a Sapling that throws all those sacred Fire Ecology Paradigms out the window & into a tailspin

Image - Jennifer DeMente

Okay I'm only kidding 😆

I'm not exactly keen on this obsession with celebrating fire or justifying it because the Indians (Native Americans or other non-white indigenous peoples) did it. Like modern humans today, they may have responsibly used some fire, but they also misused and abused it which makes them equal to human beings today. I was corrected by a scientist when I referenced my sadness about what has happened with all the human caused fires throughout the mountains surrounding Tucson Arizona. Her response was puzzling as she parroted the modern day secular religious paradigm of all fires being natural. This planet is clearly in trouble if the present failed leadership continues.

Burn Baby Burn - Fire Ecologist Celebrate Fire Season

Heavy Winter precipitation in the Western United States is apparently meaningless

Is the California drought finally over ??? Incessant rainfall and snowfall leads to terrific flooding in the Golden State as thousands of homes are evacuated 

Image from The Daily Mail
But officials also warned that though the rain has eased conditions, the drought isn't completely over

The average person falls for the big Media bluff that all is well when weather conditions take an apparent turn about from the long hard drought. Especially when it's an extreme turn of events like the massive snowfalls and rain flooding events presently hitting California and other western regions. In the back of people's minds they are telling themselves things are back to the good ol'days. But now after Californian's have been praying for rain for five years, now they are praying for a break in the rainfall. Perhaps they may believe what the UC Merced Hydrologist Roger C. Bales theorized was correct after all. Get rid of all those greedy water sucking trees and streamflows will rise. Less trees gulping water means fuller streams. Not so fast. Most of that so-called science about removal and thinning of Sierra Nevada Forest trees was more of a public relations stunt funded and backed by the giant Timber Industry and down stream Industrial Agriculture business interests which has a love affair with massive flood irrigation methodology. The imaginary myth was theorized that less forest trees gulping down water would translate more water in streams and rivers filling up reservoirs. While I looked for research on any type of documentation of millions of dead trees actually proving this reverse phenomena to be true a couple years ago, I hadn't found any until now. Apparently the research had been there a little over a year ago, but got very little success in attracting Media attention. Not as sexy as Roger Bales and Michael Goulden's theories I guess.

Recent tree die-offs have had little effect on streamflow in contrast to expected increases from hydrological studies

Images from Nature.com

Clockwise from top left the photos are Spain, Colorado, New Mexico and Argentina.

We've all read the stories and seen all the horrific  photographs of what Mountain pine beetles have done to the western forests over the past decade due to hotter temperatures and drier summers. These bark beetles have infested and killed  thousands of acres of not only western pine forests, but other forests around the globe are now also in trouble as well. Researchers like Roger C. Bales (UC Merced) and Michael L. Merced (UC Irvine) have previously predicted that as trees died or were mechanically removed by logging and thinning, streamflows would increase because fewer trees would be greedily gulping up water through their roots and transpiring it up into the atmosphere. In the imaginations of the Hydrology boys, less trees equate more water runoff for agriculture down in California's Central & San Joaquin Valleys. Back in December 2015, a study by  the University of Utah geology and geophysics professor Paul Brooks and his colleagues in Arizona, Colorado and Idaho, found that if too many trees die, then compensatory processes would kick in and might actually reduce water availability. This is the exact opposite of what Bales and Goulden speculated would happen. But what Brooks and others discovered is that when large areas of trees dieoff, the forest floor becomes sunnier, warmer and windier, which causes winter snow and summer rain to evaporate rather than slowly recharging groundwater. In fact in describing what happens with the snow which usually melts and slowly percolates into the ground, what actually happened was a phenomena called "sublimation." This process of sublimation is where snow and ice change into water vapor in the air without first melting into water. The opposite of sublimation would be "deposition", where water vapor changes directly into ice (such a snowflakes and frost). So what happens with much of that heavy snow we've seen in recent photos does not all melt and infiltrate into the subsoil layers, but rather a good percentage of the snow evaporates up into the drier warmer atmosphere. What is interesting is that the regions studied were much of the high elevation headwaters areas for the Colorado River which fill down stream reservoirs like Lake Powell and Lake Mead which have been experiencing rapidly falling water levels. This effects water potential for Arizona and Southern California.

Abstract:

"Recent bark beetle epidemics have caused regional-scale tree mortality in many snowmelt-dominated headwater catchments of western North America. Initial expectations of increased streamflow have not been supported by observations, and the basin-scale response of annual streamflow is largely unknown. Here we quantified annual streamflow responses during the decade following tree die-off in eight infested catchments in the Colorado River headwaters and one nearby control catchment. We employed three alternative empirical methods: (i) double-mass comparison between impacted and control catchments, (ii) runoff ratio comparison before and after die-off, and (iii) time-trend analysis using climate-driven linear models. In contrast to streamflow increases predicted by historical paired catchment studies and recent modeling, we did not detect streamflow changes in most basins following die-off, while one basin consistently showed decreased streamflow. The three analysis methods produced generally consistent results, with time-trend analysis showing precipitation was the strongest predictor of streamflow variability (R2 = 74–96%). Time-trend analysis revealed post-die-off streamflow decreased in three catchments by 11–29%, with no change in the other five catchments. Although counter to initial expectations, these results are consistent with increased transpiration by surviving vegetation and the growing body of literature documenting increased snow sublimation and evaporation from the subcanopy following die-off in water-limited, snow-dominated forests. The observations presented here challenge the widespread expectation that streamflow will increase following beetle-induced forest die-off and highlight the need to better understand the processes driving hydrologic response to forest disturbance."

(Source)

Tree mortality is increasing worldwide which also includes Canada

Image - Natural Resources Canada

Tree mortality is increasing worldwide including Canada

"Tree mortality will likely increase in areas where extreme weather events become more frequent. Climate change projections indicate that in some parts of Canada, droughts and other extreme events are expected to become more frequent in the future. These changes could trigger increases in tree mortality and episodes of forest decline in affected areas, posing challenges for forest management and the long-term supply of forest resources and services, including carbon balance."

So just how well are all these forests regenerating on their own without mankind's help and interference ??? Despite Environmental Activist insistence that this is the only way Nature can heal, in almost all cases the natural world is failing!

Image - University of Colorado Boulder

Researcher Monica Rother at the site of the 2000 Walker Ranch fire in Boulder County.
Eighty percent of plots surveyed there contained no new trees.

The studies and observations by the researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder exposes the bleak reality. It makes sense though. Trees under extremely high stress from drought, pine beetle attacks and catastrophic wildfire events will dump most of what's left of their energy resources into defensesive strategies (Survival) and very little towards offensive strategies (seed production). Here are a few excerpts from the report:

“It is alarming, but we were not surprised by the results given what you see when you hike through these areas,” said Rother, who earned her doctorate from CU Boulder in 2015 and works as a fire ecologist at Tall Timbers Research Station in Tallahassee, Florida. 

Among the most barren sites were those of the 2000 Walker Ranch fire in Boulder County and the 2000 Bobcat Gulch fire in Larimer County, where approximately 80 percent of plots surveyed contained no new young trees.  

“This should be a wake-up call, that under the warming trends associated with human-caused climate change, significant shifts in forest extent and vegetation types are already occurring,” said Veblen. “We are seeing the initiation of a retreat of forests to higher elevations.”  

Previous research has suggested that hotter, more severe fires make it harder for the forest to bounce back by killing mature trees and reducing seed stock. But the study found that even after lower-intensity fires, presumed to have had less effect on mature trees and seed stock, seedlings were still scarce. Hotter, drier areas at lower elevations or on south-facing slopes had the fewest seedlings.  

“Fire severity is definitely relevant, but climate appeared to play the greatest role,” in limiting forest recovery, said Rother.  

“I don’t want to present this as being entirely negative,” said Veblen. “For me, the negative aspect is what it indicates about the future.”

(Source)

So the main thrust of the message from this report is that it now seems that Nature is no longer able to restore itself in many areas. Humans have done so much extensive damage that it is also necessary for them to actually intervene and mechanical help Nature. The protesting and politically motivated wilderness designation or Nation Park status will never work. Unfortunately most people (& this includes Scientists) do not have the full understanding of how the natural world functions and operates. Much of our understanding and progress has been held back and stuck in neutral because of of silly ideologically driven worldview as mandated by this world's Scientific Orthodoxy which controls the prevailing scientific thought which has infected all Academia. Way too much time and energy has been spent by Academia and environmental organizations on religious concepts such as (Argument from Poor Design) to battle against what they call religious fundies. The argument basically trashes numerous components of our planet's natural world as being flawed, imperfect and badly designed. The argument then promotes the lame idea that this is proof there is no creator because an intelligent designer would never have created or engineered things in such & such a way. Hence, instead of creating technological innovations which apply biomimicry or biomimetics (replicating natural designs when it comes to technological innovation by observing designs found in Nature), our world's intellectuals have instead pursued innovation based on flawed human reasoning and understanding. This is what has brought us much of the genetic engineering in agriculture and a plethora of dangerous toxic synthetic chemicals to deal with the imbalance in pest invasion that humans ultimately caused in the first place. Nature have never worked that way and nature has kept balance for countless 1000s of years without human interference. Suddenly now there are some Biomimicry organizations who are on board with replicating natural designs, but they have to first undo deprogram all the people who have been fed the prevailing secular koolaid and then re-educate people as to how nature really works. This is not so much a slam against the worldview obsessed as it is a wake up or shake up call for people everywhere, irrespective of your belief system, that nature no matter how one believes if origined, has never been flawed, imperfect or badly designed. This is where flawed thinking brought California the inept theory of tree removal bringing us more water. Do you see how this has now backfired ??? Here is another example of how Forest ecosystem failure and collapse needs human intervention from India:

In order to restore tropical rainforests, it is not enough to simply set up protected areas and leave them to their own devices. In particular, tree species with large fruit and seeds distributed by birds will have to be actively planted. This is one of the conclusions of a large-scale study by scientists from ETH Zurich in the Western Ghats, the mountain range running along the western coast of India. 

“For rainforest restoration projects to be successful, you have to give special attention to these trees,” says Kettle. “If you want to encourage them to spread, the only option is to collect their seeds, set up tree nurseries and then actively plant out the saplings at a later stage.”

(Source)

Nature is becoming less resilient and no longer able to sustain itself as it has done for countless 1000s of years. One disappointing thing about the study of dead trees not increasing stream flows was the silence on the phenomena known as "hydrological descent" in which living trees (also shrubs), even when dormant, which pump excess surface water during the rainy season down into deeper layers of the subsoil layers helping to recharge the water table aquafirs. That should have been included in this study and it wasn't. Can you imagine what low percentage of this California rainy season's (2016-2017) precipitation has actually percolated into the California landscape and how much has blown out back into the Pacific Ocean through massive flooding runoff ? After years of drought a lot of bare ground will almost fossilize to where the soils pores will close up tightly and the phenomena of capiliraary action needs time to heal properly. The state of California has no infrastructure in place to funnel massive amounts of this excess freshwater back towards the interior desert riparian habitats. Think of aquatic environments like Mono Lake, Owens Lake and further south the Salton Sea which already has a major ecological water problem. Or how about any of the other maze of dry lake beds throughout the Mojave Desert. Could such filling of these large natural basins have a moderating effect on the state's regional, if not statewide climate and weather ? Not to mention benefits to wildlife ? According to all of the above studies we just briefly touched on, humans are going to have to actually intervene now and make the necessary corrections. Instead of dumping money and manpower into ineffective angry protest and destructive civil disobedience, people need to go beyomd clicking "LIKE" on a Facebook page article about environment and physically get out doors and start restoring ecosystems based on natural design which was never ever flawed. However, how well historically has that been working out for us ??? 

Can collective groups among mankind  really work together to reverse these trends we've just read about ???

We all know how well it turned out for Humpty Dumpty. All the King's horses and all the King's men were unqualified and ill equipped to fix anything back together again. Governments, Business Leaders, Scientists & Religious leaders likewise do not have the answers nor the management skills we need for a real world viable solution either. The common people around the world are taking to the streets in a last desperate resort in protest and they too are likewise ill equipped to put anything back together again. The people protesting are often not exactly sure of what they are protesting about when interviewed by some in the media. It doesn't matter what they are protesting, or what message is on their signs because they are usually are nothing more than hollow slogans. And this is taking place most everywhere globally. Fixing and correcting things takes real cooperation and working peacefully together. That's not how this world we're all forced to live in works presently. Even today's angry environmental movements seem to have no answers other than protesting something or someone they hate. They never really offer any viable alternatives other than kicking other people off a piece of some sacred real estate and saying, "Nature will just find a way" to heal itself. In the studies above that will not happen. Each and every day, Salman Rushdie's word in that CNN interview ring true:

"Classically, we have defined ourselves by the things we love. By the place which is our home, by our family, by our friends. But in this age we're asked to define ourselves by hate. That what defines you is what pisses you off. And if nothing pisses you off, who are you?" 

Salman Rushdie

There really are some decent organizations out there that actually go beyond hate motivated protesting. They also demonstrate how energy is better spent educating the public in following natural design and in participating in hands on habitat restoration work. One of the main organizations that comes to my mind is the group, (Back to Natives Restoration) who actually provide a valuable service to local urban communities and in education work to the public. Same can be said for other native plant nurseries like (Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery) and (Tree of Life Native Plant Nursery) who offer not only healthy viable native plants, but also extensive educational programs to help enlighten their customers and general public as to how nature really works and replicating installation and care with less water and no industrially manufactured science-based synthetic (fertilizers & pesticides) chemicals. All these organizations are strictly founded and identify themselves based on something they truly love, not something they hate or what pisses them off.

In Conclussion

At the very least we know where things really stand concerning our Earth's environment when the media attempts to paint a rosy picture of things not being all that bad as we first thought. It's worse folks. We also now know for a certainty that all those Politically motivated and Industrial Business interest funded hydrological studies conducted at several California Universities were dead wrong from the start. In fact their flawed schemes were never close to the truth, but many of us already knew that.

Can Nature Predict and Forecast the Weather ?

Well not in so many words as much as actions. For Many people, September 1st marks the end of Summer. I know here in Sweden, it's almost like someone flips a switch and turn on the cooler temperatures, increases the wind and starts rapidly turning down the lights from that time forward. It also marks the beginning of American football (NFL) season which I actually watch late night sometimes on the international sports channel. Retailers have clearance sales on all their summer wear, as they begin to transition into fall and the winter season scene. For me, it brings a sort of sadness to my face knowing the days are getting radically shorter and the days are getting colder. The end of summer, however, also marks the time when Nature begins to give off her signs of what our winter will be like. Although in Sweden, often times to the clues come very early.

Yesterday, my wife and I went out for a walk in Trädgårdsföreningen (The Garden Society of Gothenburg) which is a Park in Central Gothenburg. I’m not overly sensitive to this swedish natural environment, but my wife often tells me of old Swedish sayings about plants which people for ages say predicts either a cold or mild winter. So any changes in the Boreal forest are familiar to a native Swede. Well, those at least still connected to the nature of things outside. Well yesterday, the amazing thing I noticed was the incredible amount of Acorns in the Northern European Oak trees as opposed to the lack of any acorns last season. Suddenly that "Hey wait a minute !" factor kicked in. That could typically mean a harsh nasty cold winter here in Scandinavia and that would agree with an earlier report this past summer my wife was reading about a much colder winter this year 2013/2014. Last Autumn & Winter (2012/2013) prior to my coming to California for the Spring visit, I deliberately went to Göteborg Botanical Gardens to look for Acorns to take to my mum's place to plant next Spring. There is an area where the acorns on the ground beneath four massive Oak trees are normally so thick, the ground looks like it has fresh layer of of road gravel laid down. But all I found and collected was a mere handful of acorns. Probably 15 altogether and I had gone and combed the area thoroughly. All but five floated to the top of a bowl of water when I checked for viability. The others however never did germinate as I wanted. They were rotten inside. But it struck me as amazing, because our past winter was extremely mild, with little rain and almost no snowfall. What do the trees know ? Or rather what sensory mechanisms trigger such a response months in advance ?

Lorne Gill / Scottish Natural Heritage
Rowan Berries or Mountain Ash

Prior to realizing what this season's great abundance of acorns could mean, I recalled the two powerfully heavy snow winters and extreme cold the two previous years 2010 & 2011. Just prior to those winters three years ago on a summer afternoon walk in June 2010, my wife told me that the Rowan Berries were early and ripe and that meant a heavy snow with cold winter. Rowan Berries are everywhere here. They are often very weedy in the Boreal Forest understories. They are called Rowan Berries here and the native one in North America is referred to as Mountain Ash only because of it's leaf pattern which is ash-like. Now while I put up and fuss and told my wife, "Ah come on, that's an old wives tale or Norsk Folklore", never the less it all came true. BTW, Rowans were ripe early again this year. *sigh*

Farmer's Almanac

Earlier this year I remember watch CNN and a report they did on this coming Winter for the north hemisphere, but particularly North America. They mentioned that the Farmer's Almanac says so.  Knowing the new Farmer’s Almanac was just released for the 2013-2014 year. Caleb Weatherbee is the official forecaster for the Farmers' Almanac. His name is actually a pseudonym that has been passed down through generations of Almanac prognosticators and has been used to conceal the true identity of the men and women behind their weather forecasts and predictions. I quickly looked up the southwestern United States and yep they predict a very cold winter with more wet than normal. Actually the new normal is drought, so going back to historical would be unusual. So this coming season is interesting.

http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/

But not satisfied with that, I also checked another weather website location on the Net I had used in the past. I also cross referenced the Southern California area weather through this site, & Yes Sir, above average rain and cold. In fact they are predicting a little more than the Farmer's Almanac, but still pretty close. Man, we were going to visit in March. Below is their version of the map which also indicates a slight El Nino effect. Something about it being a moderate El Nino and allowing the southern Jet-Stream to pump in more moisture feeding into to those cold Pacific Northwest Storms which roll in off the Pacific Ocean from the north. So for Southern California, that means cold and extra wet.

http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/

Here is liveweatherblogs Forecast for the Southwest

Our thinking here at Liveweatherblogs.com is a west based weak to moderate El Nino to develop in late fall or early winter. This will keep the southern jet active and allow for the areas from California to Texas to the Mid Atlantic to have above average winter precipitation. 

California will have above average rainfall and snowfall and even a few very big winter storms esp. along the coast. The Pacific Northwest will see near to slightly above average rainfall and snowfall."   

But once again, what does Nature have to say ? Of course it can't talk, but what are the visible signs again, if any ? Well, I guess we'll have to go back to look at some of the traditional folklore, since many of us have lost much of those older stories or are so disconnected from Nature and indoctrinated by the present enlightened age where such lore is generally made fun of, that we may need to go back and review what people use to actually look for in times past. One plant of old folklore note is the Scarlet Pimpernel, which has been called the “poor man’s weather glass”. This is because its flowers opens in sunny weather, but closes tightly when rain is expected. Here's what the "How Stuff Works" website explains it:

"The petals fold up when skies darken before storms or at twilight, not opening again until morning light triggers their rebloom -- hence its other common name, poor-man's weather glass. A native of Europe and Asia, it is sparingly naturalized in parts of the United States."

Scarlet Pimpernel

Hmmmmm, I doubt that flower would do well as a predictor of rain here in Sweden. Maybe if there were one that could work the opposite way  ? One other way I have heard of as being reliable in natural weather indicators are pine cones. This year here in Sweden has also shown an abundance of cones, at least in my area. But the Squirrels also have been going crazy all late summer chewing seeds from the still green cones and dropping them on my head as I walk to my Trolley stop. This also makes me wonder about the Parry Pinyon Cones which were not viable back in 2000 thru 2002 when I went collecting seed for Tree of Life Nursery. What a disappointment. But now I'm curious about the following winters and the lack of normal rainfall back then. Could something be learned there ? These cones have traditionally been used to forecast the weather as they change shape according to whether it is wet or dry. In dry weather, pine cones open out as the scales shrivel up and stand out stiffly. When it is damp, they absorb moisture and as the scales become flexible again, the cone returns to its normal shape. Although you can often see this even in sun and shade of opening and closing, but I think everyone has seen this, but never put two and two together before.

When Weather is Dry, Pine Cones will be opened

Pine Cones the day before it starts to rain heavily

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Can Cows Really Predict the Weather ?

Cow Weather Gauge: University of Arizona

The idea of watching animal behavior has in the past been one of the most well known natural weather indicators. The old wives’ tale that cows lie down when it is about to rain may not be so far fetched after all, according to a new study earlier this year from the University of Arizona. The researchers discovered that cows stand up for longer periods when it is hot, proving there is a definite link between their behaviour and the weather. They also suggest that cows lie down when it is colder, which is often what happens to the weather just before it rains. This is explained by the fact that the cows sense the cooler temps and moisture in the air and are making sure they have somewhere dry to lie down. Next time you see cows out in a field, pay close attention to see if they are lying down or standing up. Then take note of the surrounding weather conditions or what soon transpires sometime after, just for fun. 

The British Columbia Folklore Society

There is no doubt that the early American farmers (and I'm sure many others) held some strange beliefs if judge by today's intellectual standards. Many of these folklore or old wives tales as they are labeled have still survived until well into the 20th century, and some may still be around today. Those people lived closer to the land and observed natural phenomena of Nature and put things together. In other words, they used the Scientific Method before it was labeled such. Sometimes I even wonder if the Scientific Method is even used anymore from reading some of the literature that has come out lately loaded with what appears to be nothing more than storytelling. A columnist writer for Farm Collector, Sam Moore quoting from a 1926 monthly "Farm Life" magazine article referencing an old farmer who said, "A lot of folks don't believe in signs, but a heap o' times the frost nips them folkses' taters."  This was funny, the old way of country speak was the way my Uncle Marshall back in Iowa use to talk. They were all intrigued by the Farmer's Almanac and planted by the dates suggested. They always did well. But Nature was not as dismantled then as it is now in our age of enlightenment. I wish I'd paid more attention and asked more questions of things back then. Now so much has been lost. I like research what many modern intellects dismiss as mere fables or myths, only to replace these with newer fables or myths and then fall back into denial. It hardly seems possible under the present system if Nature will ever heal back to what it once was or even better. Speaking of climate, the Climate of Human Leadership just question begs here. Clearly some sort of removal of their historical inept direction is in order soon, but in the mean time, we can all, especially Families, have fun in looking for ways to predict weather, that is if the change hasn't been made too drastic. Check out some of the fun references below.

What do you use and trust as a reliable Weather Predictor ?

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Reading References:

Scarlet Pimpernel, Poor-Man's Weather Glass 

Pine Cone Weather Station

Cows really can predict the rain. Scientists prove they are more likely to lie down when the weather is cold

The Farmer's Almanac

Are Rainforests Alone Solely Responsible For Earth's Climate Mechanisms ?

"Loss of Tropical Forests Reduces Rainfall"

LINK to Article:

"The findings have potentially devastating impacts for people living in and near the Amazon and Congo forests."

And so read the above titled headlines in a number of publications around the globe yesterday September 5, 2012. There were of course some great points and this of course is nothing new. It is simply further confirmation of what has been known before from the past couple decades. One clue that researchers had about the ability of a forested system to create rainfall and greatly influence climate came many many years ago was with desertification. That is the observation on the removal of heavy vegetation from an area which allowed a more drier climate circumstance to take over creating desert conditions where they had not previously existed before. This is also the same observation by average people(not just scientific intellects) realizing that rainfall seasonal averages in localized areas had changed dramatically. So the questions came up, 

"Could removing vegetation really effect climate by decreasing rainfall ?" Which leads to other questions like, "How do trees/Shrubs influence cloud formation and rainfall ?"

So the disappearance of vegetation has a dramatic effect on climate. So now research has been pursued to find out just exactly how the global climate, cloud formation and rainfall actually work. Suddenly now it just wasn't a simple matter of, "Well the Sun must heat up oceans causing water to evaporate, forming clouds which bundle themselves together into storm formation patterns and then proceed to dump their heavy cargo of water over land masses such as continents." This would be the average person's understanding or take of what makes for seasonal weather patterns. Of course they may have gotten this myth from previously held beliefs by Scientists decades ago who themselves didn't fully understand Earth's incredible biological inter-connectedness with physical laws and the roles they play in life sustaining weather mechanisms.

Source:  Bertrand Devouard ou Florence Devouard 

If it were really just that easy and simple, then the Sahara would not be what it is today. There are vast areas that never receive any rain. Even the  Biological Soil Crusts have a hard time existing there or they are absent altogether in many places. What is amazing about their absence is the fact that these tough Bio-Crusts can exist in almost any seemingly inhospitable environment which includes the humidity starved Arctic & Antarctic regions at the Poles. The problem is like other lifeforms, they need a measure of water no matter how slight in order to survive. 

Credit: C. Pöhlker, MPI for Chemistry

But there was also another article the a friend of mine pointed out yesterday that had to do with Fungi contribution to rainfall. I know, it sounds unusual, but not at all far fetched. As I've tried to illustrate here with this "Earth's Internet"  blog, everything in our natural world is marvelously constructed to work and cooperate together. In the Amazon rain forest, it has been found that salty particles from spore-launching fungi help make clouds and rain. The tiny, potassium-rich specks, smaller than bacteria, waft above the forest into the air. Once in the atmosphere, organic gases condense on the particles, coating them with gel-like compounds. The coated particles provide a surface for water vapor to form cloud droplets and rain. I'll get to some points in a moment, but first here is a link to the article and some excellent quotes which at least shows they are on the right track with some of their research.

Time Science & Space

By Veronique Greenwood | September 5, 2012 

"How Fungi Create the Amazon’s Clouds"

Some Great Quotes from the article:

"The 1.4 billion of acres of thriving, sprawling biology that cover the Amazon help drive the very metabolism of a continent."

Yes indeed. And every other plant community ecosystem around planet Earth does the same thing for it's surrounding land mass environments. This is not just a tropical rainforest phenomena.

"Clear-cut the land and you could, in effect, clear-cut the sky."

Wow, is it really possible Scientists are actually getting a clue here ? But then is it too late to do anything about it ? 

"That improbable idea comes courtesy of a paper just released in the journal Science, the product of work done by researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz, Germany."

Yes sure enough and here are those two articles and their translation to English:

"How Salt in the Rainforest Becomes Clouds"

"In forested areas, the carbon compounds are byproducts of plants’ metabolism; in populated areas, they are often from human pollution." 

Sure enough, in Southern California (greater Los Angeles area & San Diego) much of that hazy weather which tends to make want to squint a lot outside unless you have sunglasses, is nothing more than the gaseous aerosols from pollution mixed with the natural coastal marine influence. Take a drive up to the mountains and these areas have normally baby blue skies. 

"What the researchers found was a mix of carbon compounds, plus one other thing: potassium — and that told them a lot." 

And not just potassium salts, but also other aerosols like Isoprenes, Monoprenes, Terpenes, etc which may be google along with the term 'cloud formation' and countless studies pop up to reveal these things have been known for some time now.

"Forest fires often release the element into the air, but there were none burning when Pohlker took  the samples. “Since we can rule out the burning source in our samples,” he says, “the other source  seemed to be the biosphere itself.” In other words, the forest."

Yes the forest itself is an amazing rain generator, yet this was known from as far back as the 1980s where studies of this phenomena were researched by  Professor Leonel da Silveira Lobo O'Reilly Sternberg of University of Miami who also revealed much about the deep root phenomena of  Hydraulic Lift and Redistribution  and Hydraulic Descent

"Even when that’s done, it’s not clear everyone will be sold on the new findings — or at least  on their thoroughness."

Of course not. That's why we have Big Business and the bad science that drives their debased ideas on geoengineering and weather modification (throw GMOs in there as well). These things make for quick profits for owners of these companies and their impatient investors who don't want these technologies researched to wait and see if it's safe or not for the environment.

 “Are these particles only relevant directly over the rain forest, or are they lofted by convection and transported to surrounding regions?”

They effect conditions everywhere. Even the California Weather Modification boys and girls based out of northern California know enough to spray their junk far off the coast in out in the Pacific Ocean in front of an approaching storm front in wintertime to create greater water vapor absorption into the clouds to try and bring heavier rainfall to fill up reservoirs for use by big over bloated city populations in the west. Unfortunately much of the silver-iodides, barium sulfates, aluminum and other elements are also falling from the skies and showing up on the ground coating everything in once pristine environments like Mount Shasta. I'm sure this will be a too late study sometime in the future. The Geoengineering gang are behind many of the terrible technologies like HAARP which manipulates electrical and other energy frequencies. They aren't even keeping this a secret any longer. So you should ask yourself:

1 -"Where are they doing this and how do they know such things can be manipulated ?" 

2 - "Where in nature have they observed such phenomena and why are they manipulating and intensifying such frequencies to play with the global weather patterns ?"

3 - "Why are they not instead actually replicating nature by rebuilding the environment the way it was originally ?" 

There are countless other questions which an individual should ask and some of these I have dealt with in the past, though most readers here may not know of them if you have not checked out my pages on the right hand side of this blog. These pages don't go through the regular feed. All in all I liked the article, though I may disagree with some things. I like the fungal connections to trees observation. Whether or not they give off these compounds or not, these elements never the less come from a healthy pristine forest and they moderate climate through cloud formation and rainfall. The sad thing is such information as pointed out in this article will either be shelved or given some temporary funding for what is termed a "Pilot Program" somewhere. There will be much cheering, congratz, high-fives, backslapping and awards given, but most likely there will never be a massive wholesale application of intensive restoration around the globe as there should be. The planet is loaded with well meaning & the good intentions of  ecology "Pilot Programs" but we still have problems. Unless these solutions make or guarantee somebody/s a lot of money, then interest will always be lacking. I fully understand the economics side, but seriously, some things should be done because it's the right thing to do.

Time - Science & Space

"Clear-cutting the land and you could, in effect, clear-cut the sky."

I've got just a couple of examples to reveal with regards other plant community ecosystems which as just as important as rainforests. Unfortunately rainforests seem to get the most attention, which is great. But the entire planet works that same way to varying degrees. I've already listed some in this very blog. There already are a number of inventions utilizing research and information on the subject of this post. These things have been known for a very long time. But mostly such info gets shelved and filed away under subjects of local interest, but we never see the responsible wholesale application of this, even though there may be a few companies pursuing it. But they are outnumbered by conventional science which is obsessed with making their Masters a large profit. Well here is what I've written before. Here they are:

"Trees Recharge Earth's Electromagnetic Field ? ?????????  -   Yes!"

"Earth's Vegatation Effects Global Cloud Formations"

"Earth's Internet: Electrical Conductivity of Trees"

Wiki - Cahuilla Mountain . Anza, CA

The 1996 arson set Wildfire destroyed all old growth  trees and chaparral on the north & west sides of Cahuilla Mountain on the western end of Anza Valley and completely burned off on the top of the mountain. The previous organized cloud forming phenomena which took place faithfully year after year during the monsoon season which was in no way random in it's observed mechanized formation ceased to function after that event. Myself and several friends noticed this phenomena as far back as back in the early 1980s.

One of my best examples of plant community weather influence is the Chaparral Community. For twenty four years I lived in Anza California and watched every summer's monsoonal flow weather phenomena coming in from the direction of Coyote Canyon to the southeast from Mexico. I'm a little hesitant to go into this very much now as I actually have a deeper draft in this blog's back-office, because I need to photo and document some things first. Back then there were no digital cameras and there was no interest on my part for writing about them other than personal interest and practical application. But in brief, there were three main geographical areas which facilitated cloud formation and Thunderstorm development better and or more often than other areas in and around Anza. One area was called Cahuilla Mountain, another the large land area is located at the southern end boundary of Cahuilla Indian Reservation towards the Buck Snort Mountains & Beauty Peak. The third is an area between Paradise corners jct of Hwys 371/74 east towards Santa Rosa Indian Reservation with Lookout Mountain in the middle. For the first several years I wondered if it was a matter of geographical structure. Moisture pushing up from Mexico being uplifted at these locations, meeting colder air and creating clouds. Unfortunately this could only be said of Cahuilla Mountain and not the other two. The area of southern Cahuilla Indian Reservation are mere foothill steppes leading up higher points. To make this story short there was one component that was identical and all three had in common. None of these three areas had much development or vegetation removal. Most of the vegetation while there was some trees, were predominantly old growth Chaparral. I had always noticed on the morning of a rain event that day when there was only blue skies and no clouds, there was always the moist heavy scent or fragrance of Chaparral aerosols hanging in the air. Mostly these were Creosote Brush coming in from the Borrego Desert floors, or Redshank/Ribbonwood chaparral. If I didn't experience this phenomena then rain was for the most part unlikely.

I'm going to leave it there as I have more details coming in the other post. But anyone can Google for themselves almost any plant, shrub or tree and find info on aerosol releases or other phenomena such as their abilities at Hydraulic Life, Redistribution or Descent. Believe it or not there are some researchers out there that have already done the hard work on this and yet you will never find such terms in most land rehabilitation programs or projects. Seriously when you apply all of this together, it makes for greater understanding of how the biological machinery actually functions and what steps you must take in calculating just what you need to do in rebuilding it. To REPEAT here, the conventional science makes no mention of any of this in the literature. It apparently gets filed away under phenomena of passive interest and never truly sees the light of day for the true value of what it really is. 

Picture: Bart van Stratum

Here's another examples of the connection between Temperate forest and/or grassland vegetation and their effects on cloud formation and eventual rainfall water cycling. Presumably fewer clouds over the grassland prairies will mean less rainfall. The increase in Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere causes an evaporation decrease in plants. More sunlight will reach the ground as opposed to this energy being absorbed by clouds. Please read the interesting article below.

"More CO2 leads to less Clouds"

"A new feedback mechanism operating between vegetation and cloud formation could enhance the climate change"

A familar site in the western North America

The plants are an important source for lower elevation dew point close to the ground for which successful rainfall events may occur allowing fresh water cycling to saturate the Earth below. This brings me to the meteorological term called Virga which is an observable streaking or shafting of rainfall underneath what appears to be a well defined Thunderhead. But the rainfall never hits the earth. The reason is that in the higher altitudes water content is frozen as ice crystals before melting into water and eventually evaporating before hitting the Earth as a result of drier lower elevation compressional heating, as air pressure increases closer to the ground. Higher dew point humidity means rainfall has better potential for reaching the ground. You will often hear this explained to you on local TV News weather reports. Again this is most common in Deserts and Temperate regions. Most often these beautiful scenes like the photo above will be seen around late afternoon and sunset. Although I have seen them at around 4:00-5:00 am in the deserts near the Salton Sea.

Oil/Canvas, © Cedar Lee

Still it does illustrate the importance of the healthier older growth vegetation connections to deep water sources within the Earth itself through deep complex root system structure and their mycorrhizal connections with other plants. Releasing of water through transpiration & aerosol releases facilitates the entire productive rainfall event. Take the vegetation away and you have fewer chances of proper climate rainfall averages. This has been going on for decades, but the difference now is that as opposed to destruction of a localized geographical water cycling phenomena, the entire planet hydrological cycle system is breaking down. Of course there is always that matter of electric discharge by vegetation into the atmosphere. During monsoonal moisture flows and cloud formation, there is a stronger positive charge to the atmosphere above and negative grounding in the Earth. Plants offer a connection to this two forces. The extreme or heavier rain is usually closest to the direct location of lightning strikes.

Let's illustrate it this way. Neon lights work on the principal of electrically charged gases, particularly Argon Gas which lights up at the presence from both ends of the Bulbs tubing of a positive and negative charge which lights up the particles. Clearly the gas particles are a conduit. Though the gases or aerosols given off by plants are not of the same composition, there must clearly be an electrical conductivity component which works within the microscopic particles and moisture given off by the plants that allows for this cloud formation and rainfall.  Once again you never find all of these factors together being spoken about with regards this subject, but it should be. The weather modifying equipment prove they understand the concept very well. 

Credit: Craig Allen, U.S. Geological Survey

This Pinyon Pine forest that is near Los Alamos New Mexico have begun to turn brown from drought stress in the left side image which was taken in 2002. The other photo taken in 2004 from the same vantage point shows the Pinyon Pines largely dead. These plants normally absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, but clearly with changes to the atmosphere today with it's higher than normal CO2 content, there is a shutting down of this water & aerosol combination release which also hinders many components of the cloud formation for which water vapor from the summer monsoonal flow is able to form around these micro-particles which aid in cloud formation. The summertime tropical monsoonal flow events streaming up from Mexico still make their way north, but if the mechanisms below are disrupted in anyway, then the normal pattern of rainfall changes or ceases altogether in many areas. Today's problem is that these areas are widening geographical encompassing greater and greater regions. Eventually we have a runaway train domino effect.

Aerial Spraying of Chemical Aerosol cloud seeding

In desperation, most government scientists ALL know this, yet their answer is some of the usual irresponsible conventional science which offers only a quick fix-it-pill approach. Not to mention, it almost always has to make someone money and this is where horrible programs of the bad science of Geo-engineering and Weather Modification come in. These are clearing not viable answers, but they won't even attempt to repair the damaged natural machinery which has been dismantled out in nature around our globe. Watching all the stupid political infighting among leaders at these wasteful climate summits makes one realize things will never change. Bookmark this and keep watching for further info. 

As a parting note, Mike Amaranthus of Mycorrhizal Applications Inc has a latest Video on their Natural World biotechnology with regards to "The Green Economy" and replicating nature which is something mainstream conventional Government Mandated Science has ignored for the most part.Here is a link to the Mycorrhizal Applications Inc You-Tube page with a wealth of educational video material.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mycorrhizalappl?feature=results_main

Well here's the superstitious storytelling Shaman version of cloud formation and rainfall given to gullible ignorant tribesmen sitting around a camp fire who'll question nothing uttered from their leader.