High above the clouds
Published: Fri, 02/08/19
On Monday afternoon I flew back over the North sea from Aarhus in Denmark to Standsted in the UK. Monday was cloudy and wet at ground level. At twenty five thousand feet the sky was gloriously blue and bright with sunshine. Below was an endless carpet of white clouds reflecting the golden sunlight. It seemed like flying over another world, rather than just being high above the everyday one.
And yet clouds are just massive amounts of water vapour suspended high in the atmosphere. Water that has come from one of two sources, either evaporation from the sea or other bodies of water. Or, the water vapour has been released by trees which have transpired the water vapour into the air. Most of our rain in the UK comes from water that originally evaporated from the ocean. However, clouds can only travel about four hundred miles over land before they are rained out. That is not a problem in the UK since these islands are barely two hundred miles across at the widest point. However, if a land mass is many hundreds if not thousands of miles across, how can rain clouds reach the interior? Apparently there is only one way this can happen, forests will absorb rainfall and put the moisture back into the atmosphere. This process can be constantly repeated until there is almost as much rainfall in the centre of a huge continent
as there is in the coastal regions. The mighty Amazon river is fed by just such a process. And if there is no forest in the coastal region? Then the interior will be dry and may even become desert. There are no significant forests in the coastal regions of North Africa, it is therefore no surprise that a couple of hundred miles inland the Sahara Desert begins and extends for a huge distance.
The Amazon basin is drying out as the coastal forests are cleared. It may well be that one day, perhaps not too far in the future, the interior of the South American continent will not look so different to North Africa today. That would be a tragedy, but clear the trees and the result is inevitable.
I find it extraordinary that our whole eco system is such an amazing balance between physical processes of sunlight and evaporation of liquids and the biological contribution of trees in creating and maintaining a habitable environment for all creatures including us.
There are plenty more amazing things that trees can do. Come to the Runes and Trees Retreat in June and find out more of them for yourself. Check out the information page first this time, I have just added a rather lovely new picture which was taken by Maddy Elruna in Denmark on Sunday. Check it out here http://rr.stavcamp.org/info.html
If you are serious about coming don’t take too long about booking, places are limited and there is an early booking discount until the end of this month.
regards
Graham
PS I was flying back from Denmark after a Winter Thing get together hosted by Mads Knudsen and his wife Karen. This was the second time we held such an event and it was great to get together again with fellow practitioners of Stav. Thanks again Mads and Karen for your warm hospitality, to Christian for collecting and returning us to the airport, and everyone else who was there for being such good company.