"Old Growth Forests - Nature's Biotic Water Pump": New Film

 

Have you ever thought about where fresh water comes from? How it gets here? Ok, yes... rainfall brings it. But do you know how and why rain falls across the breadth of the land? Or possibly- why it doesn't?

Atmospheric physicist Millán Millán of Spain (1941-2024) remembered how, when he was a boy in the 1940's, there were daily summer rainstorms in his homeland. In the 1970's, he was asked to determine why those daily storms had disappeared from the western Mediterranean region, leaving the land much drier. 

He found that, along the coast, marshes had been eliminated, and land had been deforested, industrialized, developed, and paved. His research revealed that, prior to those land cover changes, evaporation from the marshes and transpiration from forests had added enough moisture to the sea breezes to cause condensation and daily summer rainfall. 

But because of the change to the land cover, the land surface was now much warmer than it had been. And with the elimination of the marshes and forests, moisture was no longer being added to the incoming air, so its water vapor content was insufficient to cause precipitation. The daily rains came no more. The land became drier and hotter.

 

A deforested, dry Mediterranean landscape

In our 2024 film "The Return of Old Growth Forests", the Biotic Pump theory was presented by its co-author, atmospheric physicist Anastassia Makarieva, who described how large, contiguous, old natural forests bring fresh water inland from oceans during photosynthesis by transpiring water vapor into the air. That water vapor leads to precipitation, creating a feedback loop that keeps water vapor coming inland and the land hydrated; forests bring water to themselves, and us. That's part of the Earth's hydrological cycle. Furthermore, with contiguous forest cover, water is effectively "pumped" across continents. As a result, not only do we get a terrestrial fresh water supply, but our climate is regulated, stabilized, and moderated as well. But that biotic pump mechanism can be shut down by degraded, interrupted, or eliminated forests.

For decades now, we've been hearing considerable discussion of how greenhouse gases, particularly CO2, cause climate change. But what has been almost totally ignored is the effect that alteration of land cover has on our climate. It's not just about carbon, and never was.

Keeping the land hydrated is crucial to terrestrial life, but that lesson has been learned the hard way. Many cultures have destroyed the very thing that makes the land habitable... forests. Places such as Egypt, Africa, Australia, and others, have become deserts because their forests were cut to the point where the hydrological cycle was disrupted, the soil dried out and could not recover on its own (ie, it became a "landscape trap"). That destructive behavior is still happening today in places like Canada, America, Chile, and the Amazon, putting those places also on the trajectory to desertification. 

And change to land cover, especially the cutting and removal of forests, is what Millán Millán referred to as "the second leg of climate change." The greenhouse gas effect is just one half of the climate change story; land cover change is the other half, and just as important.

This story is told in much more detail in our new film, "Old Growth Forests - Nature's Biotic Water Pump". Sadly, Millán Millán passed away in 2024, but we hear his words in the film, thanks to audio from an interview Alpha Lo of Climate Water Project (on Substack) did with him. Anastassia Makarieva has become world renowned for her continuing research on the critical role of forests; in this film, she adds more information about the biotic pump mechanism. And we thank her for the invaluable help and guidance she provided. She too has a Substack site.

You might also like to read the interesting story of Millán Millán; Rob Lewis relates it on his "The Climate According to Life" Substack site.

The film will be available on the New England Forests Youtube channel April 20, 2025, at 6pm EST.

 

 

 

 

Youtube settings you should know about

 

 

Note to YouTube viewers.

When watching videos on YouTube, there are some settings that may negatively affect your viewing experience. 

 

“Stable Volume" setting

If you find that certain sounds are too loud (eg, background soft breezes), it may be because the "Stable Volume" setting is turned on. This setting boosts lower volume level sounds, and may make them objectionably loud. I found this to often be the case when watching on an Iphone. 

You can find this setting by clicking the gear wheel "Settings" icon at the lower right of the YouTube screen. Turn off "Stable Volume". 

 

"Ambient mode" setting

The "Ambient mode" setting casts a soft glow around a video, which you may not like. 

You can find this setting by clicking the gear wheel "Settings" icon at the lower right of the YouTube screen. Turn off "Ambient mode".  

“Quality” setting

You can also select a playback video resolution in the Settings menu, which will affect how the video looks (and plays) on your device. The "Quality" setting is where you can select the optimal video resolution for your viewing device (ie, a computer screen, phone, tablet, etc). The available values for this setting will vary from one video to another, depending on the resolution of the uploaded video. Higher values require faster internet connections than lower values.

Our New England Forests videos are usually created in 4K (2160p) resolution, and that may give you the best video quality if your device is capable of playing 4K, and your internet connection is fast enough to play 4k smoothly. 

 

Smaller-screen devices (such as phones or tablets) or older computers may not be able to play 4K (or play it well), so in that case select a lower setting. Use the highest setting that your device and internet connection can play smoothly.

"The Return of Old Growth Forests" film event

In January we held a screening of "The Lost Forests of New England" at the Simsbury (CT) Public Library, co-sponsored by the Simsbury Land Trust and the library. Interest in the topic of old-growth forests continues to increase, so these co-sponsors have invited us to present the film "The Return of Old Growth Forests" on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. And we're more than pleased to do so.

 

Old-growth Yellow Birch bark

Less than 1% of New England forest land is old growth. A high percentage of central New England land is cloaked in second-growth forest that is recovering from the massive land clearing of former agricultural years. A significant amount of such second-growth, which is at most 150 or so years old, should be set aside to eventually become old-growth once again, allowing it to regain greater biodiversity, an improved gene pool, and therefore enhanced resilience and adaptability (not to mention natural beauty). For a more detailed discussion, see this earlier blog article.

In this one-hour film, we will learn how to recognize some of the characteristics of our remnant, northeastern old-growth forests, with scenes from several of our most beautiful. 

Also, several scientists explain why these natural old forests are so important.

Environmental scientist Margery Winters explains “morticulture”, the role that dead, hollow, and fallen trees play in forest ecology. 

Ed Faison, Senior Ecologist at Highstead, discusses nature-managed vs actively-managed forests.

And atmospheric physicist Anastassia Makarieva introduces us to the "Biotic Pump" theory (which she co-authored), which describes how old, native, natural forests bring fresh water inland from the sea to themselves (and us!); it also accounts for the little-known but vastly significant role that old forests play in stabilizing the Earth's climate, moderating temperatures, storms, and droughts. (Note: we will soon be releasing a new film that expands on this biotic pump topic, so it would be helpful to see this film first).

This 6:30pm program is free and open to the public. There will be a Q&A session following the film. More info, and pre-registration, at the Simsbury Public Library website.

Beaver Pond Wildlife film series in CT

Few wildlife species are more intriguing, and none has a greater ability to alter and create habitat than that iconic keystone species, the beaver. This unassuming mammal goes about its daily life setting up and maintaining its homestead, all the while creating aquatic and terrestrial conditions that so many other creatures rely on.

The Simsbury (CT) Grange, in partnership with Simsbury Land Trust and Simsbury Public Library, is once again featuring our 5-part "Beaver Pond Wildlife" film series. The films document the lives of the multitude of species typically found in, on, and around northeastern beaver ponds, season by season. Each film is about one hour long.

The films will be scheduled to coincide with what you can expect to see at northeastern beaver ponds at that time of the year. Each contains at least some scenes that probably most people have never witnessed.

There will be a Q&A session with filmmaker Ray Asselin following each film.

"Part 1 - Early Spring" will be presented on Friday, April 4, 2025, at 7:00 pm. We'll see migrating birds arriving at beaver ponds to stake out nesting territories, including warblers, songbirds, swallows, ducks, geese, herons, ospreys, and more. A variety of mammals, amphibians, fish, and reptiles are part of the mix too, such as beavers (of course), muskrats, deer, fisher, bobcat, otters, weasels, opossum, coyote, skunk; frogs, turtles, toads, and newts; and bald eagles as well.

Parts 2 through 5 progress chronologically through late spring to winter, and are scheduled for the following Friday evenings: May 2, June 6, October 3, and November 7, respectively. 

The events will be held at the Simsbury Grange hall, 236 Farms Village Rd, W. Simsbury, CT. The hall, nearly a century old, has a charming atmosphere, complete with a traditional wooden floor. The doors open at 6pm for a social hour with refreshments, followed by the film at 7pm. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated.

Pre-register at the Simsbury Library website.

"Old Forest or Young Meadow -The Marvel of Seeds" - a new film

Have you ever thought about how, almost magically, a brown, bulldozed or scraped up piece of land turns green with plants again? How do all those plants get there so quickly? Where did they come from? Ok, we know that there are seeds already in the soil, just waiting for their opportunity to germinate. But it's still pretty amazing that nature has developed this process of having new plants always ready to go, in tiny embryonic packages. Seeds allow us to readily raise crops. They replenish the forests we take down. They make burned habitat or lava-covered ground productive again. We take them for granted, confident in the fact that we can do almost anything destructive to acres of land, and as soon as we back off, the land will rapidly green up, with no effort on our part.

Violet seeds

Plants, like all life forms, do not live forever, so they must reproduce. But, luckily for us, most also reproduce in a way that doesn't have to rigidly adhere to a time schedule. They cast themselves into the future via the seeds they produce, which can wait out poor or impossible growth conditions until such time as conditions become favorable. That could be days, weeks, years, even millennia. Imagine if that was not the case, and seeds were only viable for, say, a few days. Would we even be here today if that were true?

 

Wild ginger

 

And, what if a plant's seeds just fell at the foot of the parent plant? If they could germinate there, they would then have to compete with the parent for light, water, space, and nutrients. Doesn't seem like a good plan. So, since the parent plant can't move around to place seeds here and there, it has to have some other way to get the seeds dispersed. And that's the subject of our new film, Old Forest or Young Meadow - the Marvel of Seeds.

 

Bluebirds on sumac

Plants have evolved over many millions of years. In that time, nature has devised some fascinating methods for them to "get the kids out of the house". We've spent the last couple years or so learning about and filming these different dispersal strategies. They take place all around us, but can be so easily overlooked. Some are rather mundane, but others are intriguing; some are surprising and quite entertaining. All are effective. Some, though very common, are almost never observed by anyone. Al Richmond and I spent uncounted days and hours in our favorite haunts to find the best examples we could.

 

Cynipid wasp gall on oak leaf

Here's a teaser... what do oak leaf galls and walking-stick insects have in common with spring ephemeral wildflowers? Can't answer that one? Well, then I guess you'll want to watch the film.

You'll find Old Forest or Young Meadow - the Marvel of Seeds on the New England Forests Youtube channel.