“Thousands have lived without love, no one has lived without water”

TLC told all of us “don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to” but what happens when climate change drastically changes those oh so familiar rivers and lakes?

Thinking about climate change we commonly think about carbon dioxide and methane warming the atmosphere. We do this so often that it is hard to see a broader picture. People have begun to associate the term greenhouse gases with a negative connotation. But without greenhouse gases, Earth would be a cold and icy wasteland. 

Did you know that water is Earth's primary greenhouse gas? Although water is the dominant greenhouse gas, its effects are difficult to measure. This is because it doesn't spread out evenly in the atmosphere the way that carbon dioxide does. It also affects the atmosphere and temperature differently based on its current form. Water is one of the coolest shape shifters in our environment. If you're interested in more ways water is a mythical creature, take a look at the work done by Richord Hammond in Wild Weather. 

Basically, when water takes the form of a haze, it has a warming effect. When it takes the form of a cloud, it can have a cooling effect by blocking sun rays or a slight warming effect at night by capturing the warmth from the ground. Since the variables of water are so definitive of its surroundings, measuring it can be difficult.

I'm not sure about you, but the first thing that comes to mind when I hear climate change (other than crippling anxiety) is Nelly’s poetic, 2002 lyric “It's gettin’ hot in herre (so hot)”. Contrary to popular belief, temperature is not the only variable in a climate. If a climate can be either warm or cold - it can also be wet or dry. While temperature does have some effect on rainfall, floods and droughts are primarily caused by disruptions to the hydrological cycle. 

We tend to think of the water cycle in the elementary terms we learned when younger. All of us understood that rain falls, water evaporates, and condenses into clouds. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. What our high school biology teachers failed to mention, was that this is only a small portion of what's going on. A lot more of our water system is happening underground (cue the end scene of The Goonies). 

Healthy soil is like a sponge that soaks up a lot of water. From here, some of the water is stored by plants while some trickles down into aquifers (infiltration). The groundwater will fill up rivers and streams which allows even more life to thrive. Yayy photosynthesis!! From this, there is then much more water to evaporate from the ground or to transpire through plants. This wealth of water vapor allows for more consistent rainfall. 

So what happens if you cut down the forest, plow the grasslands, and expose the soil? Without trees or plants to buffer the rain, the heavy downpour compacts the soil. The water has difficulty soaking down into the compacted ground and almost all of it stays on top. This creates a flood which then creates run off. This runoff water carries a large amount of topsoil with it. When the rain stops, the little water that is left, evaporates very quickly, leaving the ground compact and dry. This lack of percolation depletes the groundwater overtime so it can't feed the streams which then dry up. With this, there is no water in the land to feed the rain clouds which will then create a drought. If a rainstorm does come, it just creates another flood and worsens the subsequent drought.

Without consistent rainfall, we have a flood/drought cycle. A cycle like this is just the beginning of A Series of Unfortunate Events. And yes, just like the books - the bad guys only care about the money. So how can we begin to care about our hydroclimate? How might we stop super villains from cutting down forests, plowing grasslands, and exposing our soil? For these environmental villains there is no love lost and no love found. Thousands of people have lived and thrived without love, but none of us can live without the water being used, abused, and mistreated. 

If you're interested in following along in my research to find sustainable solutions to our hydroclimatology crisis, contact me here.