The 'Biotic Pump' and its effect on climate - the importance of Plants

​What people need to remember is that the old explorers used to find islands and land by spotting the cloud formations above them. But when the land gets too hot, the clouds form over sea.

The evaporating surface of a well-vegetated landscape can be 10-20 times greater than that over the sea, because the sea is only evaporating at the surface layer. In a rain event on well-vegetated landscape, 70 percent of the water that comes down has been through a plant. These are all tested and proven measurable scientific facts. 

The next thing is the expansion rate of water as it is evaporated by plants and it gets the transpiration and the cooling of photosynthesis. That requires a lot of water to cool it. 

So, collectively, the land gets loaded with this huge gaseous water vapour which, as soon as the sun goes down, shrinks, and draws the evaporated water off the sea onto the land. A Russian group of scientists have called it the “biotic pump”. (1)

From extensive science, 14 groups came together with this information and produced a book called “The International Journal of Water” which was fully peer-reviewed. (2)

Australia has the longest hours of sunlight, previously the greatest range of plant species that worked generally 24/7. Therefore, it has a second to none chance, as the Ancient Australia had proven to do, to manage climate at the highest level.

1. See “The Biotic Pump: Condensation, atmospheric dynamics and climate” by Anastassia M. Makarieva, Victor G. Gorshkov, Int. J. of Water, 2010 Vol.5, No.4

2. See “Special Issue on Water and the Complexities of Climate", International Journal of Water, 2010 Vol. 5 No. 4, Guest Editor: Associate Professor Ariel Salleh