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There is a hot debate occurring right now among scientists and physicists driven by a new controversial theory that claims forests can generate their own wind and it’s part of an already proven theory that forests can create their own rain.
As if you didn’t have enough weather conditions to worry about protecting your skin and how to reduce wrinkles caused by the elements, now it looks like you’ll have to worry about those windy forests.
First of all, we first need to understand that forests creating their own wind is a byproduct of the ability to create their own rain. Back in 2017, research scientists proved that trees in the Amazon rainforest make their own rain, Science Mag reported.
The Amazon rainforest is known for being a home to strange weather phenomenon. Actually, the theory that forests could create their own rain was considered a “common sense” idea for many decades until it was finally proven.
Rong Fu, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, was part of the team that used data from NASA’s Aura satellite, a spacecraft dedicated to studying the chemistry of Earth’s atmosphere, to study water vapor over the Amazon and were able to prove that forests indeed produce their own rain.
Actually, researchers had believed this was possible for years and had been studying it.
In addition, Fu and her colleagues published a report in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that as tree-induced rain clouds release rain, they warm the atmosphere, causing air to rise and triggering circulation, and if the circulation is large enough, it triggers the shift in wind patterns that will bring in more moisture from the ocean.
However, they did not have concrete proof of forest-induced wind.
With the above understanding that forests can create their own rain, it may not be a stretch or weird notion to propose the idea that it may be possible for forests to create their own wind environments. One group of researchers in Russia believe that not only is it possible – they say it’s true. They say the rainmaking role of forests has also led to a consequent wind effect.
Researcher Anastassia Makarieva at the Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute (PNPI), has been championing a theory for over a decade on how Russia’s boreal forests, the largest expanse of trees on Earth, are involved in regulating the climate of northern Asia, Science Mag reports.
Science Mag explains it like this: “When water vapor over coastal forests condenses, it lowers air pressures, creating winds that draw in moist ocean air. Cycles of transpiration and condensation can set up winds that deliver rains thousands of kilometers inland.”
