Water Cycle Archives - activist360

Evapotranspiration rises off the forest in the mountains of Ren’ai Township, Taiwan. Credit: Erica Gies

And What Nature Is Trying to Tell Us

Not long ago, wildfires tore through Los Angeles in the middle of winter. That caught a lot of people off guard. Winter fires used to be rare. But meteorologists weren’t surprised. They had already seen signs: unusually dry air, low humidity, and the perfect conditions for flames to spread.

With climate change, this “fire weather” is happening more often — not just in California, but in places like Canada, southern Europe, and the U.S. Southeast. Here’s the mystery: even though the world is getting warmer, some dry places aren’t getting more humid — they’re getting drier. So where is all the moisture going?

The Science Behind Moisture and Warming

Scientists know that warmer air can hold more water. It’s a basic rule called the Clausius–Clapeyron relationship, which says that for every 1°C (1.8°F) of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.

Climate models — the computer programs scientists use to predict the future — say we should see more moisture in the air everywhere as the world warms. And that’s exactly what’s been happening in some places. For example, intense floods in Pakistan, Germany, and New York City were made worse by extra moisture in the air.

But over drylands — places like the U.S. Southwest, parts of Africa, and Australia — the models seem to be wrong. Instead of more moisture, the air is staying just as dry… or getting drier.

Missing Moisture: What’s Going Wrong?

Atmospheric physicist Isla Simpson and her team noticed this odd pattern by studying 40 years of weather data. In places that were already dry, humidity wasn’t going up. In some cases, like the American Southwest, it was going down.

The big question is: Why?

One possible answer is that plants and soil aren’t giving off as much water vapor as the models expect. Normally, plants “sweat” through tiny pores in their leaves, releasing moisture into the air — a process called transpiration. Soil also releases water. But under stress — like heat, drought, or damage — this natural system seems to slow down.

And here’s the twist: most climate models don’t fully account for the biology of plants and soil. They focus more on oceans, ice, and the atmosphere, and less on the living systems that also affect the climate.

Why Plants and Soil Matter

It turns out that plants and soil do much more than just sit there. They help regulate temperature and rain patterns. When plants release moisture, the moister:

Cools the air (like sweat on skin)
Helps clouds form
Helps spread rain farther inland

Healthy soil also plays a major role:

It holds water like a sponge
It supports fungi and bacteria that help form rain clouds
It slows down water runoff, keeping landscapes cooler and wetter

But when ecosystems are damaged, this water-holding system breaks down. The land dries out, gets hotter, and becomes more prone to droughts and fires.

Living ecosystems help cool and moisten the Earth. Damaged ecosystems make it hotter and drier.

How Humans Made It Worse

You might wonder: how did this happen on such a large scale?

The answer lies in how much we’ve changed the land:

75% of the Earth’s land has been severely altered by human activity (IPBES, 2019)
Grasslands and savannas are overgrazed
Wetlands are drained
Forests are logged and replaced with tree farms
Industrial farming strips soil of life and nutrients

Even when we replant trees, they’re often monocultures (just one species), which don’t support the same soil health or moisture processes as natural forests. These changes might look green from space, but they don’t function the same way.

What We Can Do About It

When it comes to tackling climate change, we often hear about personal habits such driving less, eating differently, using less energy. While these actions matter, the biggest changes come from policies and systems. That’s why the most important thing we can do is use our voices and our votes.

Elect Leaders Who Protect Nature

Support candidates who prioritize ecosystem protection, climate resilience, and land stewardship
Ask hard questions: Will you protect native forests? Will you fund soil and water restoration?
Vote in local, state, and national elections. These decisions directly impact land use and climate outcomes

Hold Politicians Accountable

Follow up after elections by tracking what your representatives are doing for the environment
Attend town halls, write to your lawmakers, and support environmental advocacy groups
Push for science-based policies that restore biodiversity, water systems, and climate stability

When leaders understand that voters care about land and water — not just carbon — they’re more likely to act. Restoring ecosystems isn’t just good science, it’s good politics.

Restore Natural Ecosystems

Let native forests regrow instead of planting single-species trees
Support healthy grasslands with better grazing practices
Protect wetlands and water sources

Care for the Soil

Reduce tilling and chemical use
Encourage farming methods that boost soil life
Plant cover crops that help the land retain moisture

Think Local and Global

Support community land stewards and Indigenous practices
Include land care in climate solutions, alongside reducing carbon emissions

Restoring ecosystems brings powerful benefits: it can increase local rainfall, cool surrounding areas, reduce the risk of fires and droughts, and support healthier biodiversity. These natural systems do more than sustain wildlife — they help protect our communities too.

Summing Up

Climate change isn’t just about carbon dioxide — it’s also about water, life, and how we care for the land. When dry places get even drier, it’s a sign that something’s out of balance.

By listening to nature and recognizing the role of plants, soil, and ecosystems, we can develop better climate models, smarter solutions, and a safer future. As the science shows, protecting living systems doesn’t just help animals and plants. It helps us too.

Let’s care for the land as part of how we care for the climate.

Source: Gies, E. (2025, June 20). Climate science and the case of the missing moisture. Nature Water, 3, 634–637. https://www.nature.com/articles/s44221-025-00455-2?error=cookies_not_supported&code=4b4f3552-589a-41ae-8609-2d2a00e407f1

Invaluables’ may have the highest value, according to Meine van Noordwijk

By Robert Finlayson, Forests News (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

“It is essential to understand the different ways in which people value nature, as well as the different ways in which these values can be measured,” said Ana Maria Hernández Salgar, IPBES chairperson. “The diversity of values of nature is often overlooked in policy decisions. Effective policy decisions about nature must be informed by the wide range of values and valuation methods, which makes the IPBES’ values assessment a vital scientific resource for policy and action for nature and human well-being.”

The Assessment Report comes at a critical time for life on Earth, which is fast losing its richness. The Report considers the trend to assign various values — including financial ones — to nature in an attempt to recognize the worth of natural ecosystems to human wellbeing.

“‘Invaluables’ may have the highest value,” said Meine van Noordwijk, CIFOR-ICRAF’s distinguished science fellow and one of 20 experts from around the world who functioned as ‘convening lead author’ for the Assessment. “For some types of decisions and decision-makers, it is relevant to use financial units to represent at least part of the value of nature to people but there is always a risk that such statements are misinterpreted.”

The Assessment has been a four-year journey, with many rounds of feedback, peer review and policy consultations. Detailed discussions by government delegates of the Summary Report will have increased the relevance of the key messages for discussion at global and national levels.

The word ‘value’ has many meanings, ranging from numbers through prices to non-negotiable core principles, he said. To value a tree, a forest or an agroforestry landscape means interacting with many perspectives. The more people involved, the wider the set of values that matters and which has to be taken into account.

This is of grave importance owing to the rapid and massive loss of species that is not confined to a particular group of drivers in one or two locations but is worldwide, all-embracing and under-recognized.

Consumers, for example, currently don’t pay a ‘true price’ for products sourced from nature (which is, ultimately, all products). Decisions by consumers and producers that are based on a narrow set of market values for nature are the hidden driver of the global biodiversity crisis. Bringing these values into the open can help people better understand the costs of over-exploitation and increase the likelihood of ensuring that the values — including the less tangible, non-financial ones — are honoured and preserved.

Importantly, the way the ‘conservation of nature’ is currently framed frequently ignores the values of people who live in any given ‘conservation’ area, with usually negative impact on the intended objectives for the conservation area. These people need to be recognised and respectfully included in decision processes.

Van Noordwijk noted that from examination of countries’ biodiversity reports and action plans drawn up in response to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, it’s clear that less than 25% of the world’s governments are on track to integrate values of nature that are beyond those recognized by markets. But he also noted that current valuation studies rarely report on the uptake of such in decisions related to governments’ policies and programmes.

The six chapters of the Assessment Report make the point of distinguishing between ‘instrumental’ values — which are those that can be measured by the goods and services that nature, biodiversity or well-functioning ecosystems provide to people — and ‘relational’ values: those that may be equally important to people’s well-being in immaterial ways.

The types of values that are most effectively communicated depend on the audience and the context, meaning that communication is as important as the decisions themselves that are made by governments and others in relation to the conservation of biological diversity.

“Scientists and other people interested in the issue have to help decision-makers understand so that they can frame policies and actions that will be effective,” he said. “Particularly, drawing decision-makers’ attention to the fact that humans who depend most on an area considered worthy of conservation need to be fully involved in decisions regarding it and that the intangible values — such as climate regulation, maintenance of healthy ecosystems and the water cycle — need to be fully recognised.”

Van Noordwijk stressed that from a ‘forests, trees and agroforestry’ perspective, the international acceptance of the Assessment Report can help pursuit of a dual strategy of 1) clarifying the way ecosystem structures and functions contribute instrumental values to people locally, nationally and globally and, thus, the economic values that are at stake if the current trend of biodiversity loss continues, and which can be partially recovered through ‘restoration’ of degraded landscapes; and 2) engaging with stakeholders to appreciate, and recognize, the various relational values that matter to them.

“The latter can, at the very least, help in more effective communication,” he said, “not only in a language that people can understand but also in a language that speaks to their hearts.”

Around the world, examples abound of conflicts that might be reduced or completely eradicated if these points are better understood.

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Tag: Water Cycle

Why Dry Places Are Getting Even Drier