Biotic Regulation: News

BR for Everyone: Happy New Year!

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0300

In our opinion, our main 2009 achievement has been the quantitative description of hurricanes and tornadoes based on the same physics the biotic pump of atmospheric moisture is based upon. The key finding was the formulation of Equation (4) relating wind velocity and air pressure drop from the vortex outskirts to the vortex center. Namely, the more rapidly the air ascends, the more rapidly its water vapor cools and condenses, which results in a pressure fall at the surface.

We consider this work important as it will allow researchers from various fields (including those unrelated to ecology) to evaluate the physical mechanism of the biotic pump. This understanding can facilitate the scientific recognition of the importance of forest cover in the atmospheric moisture transport. The next step will be recognition of other biotic regulation statements.

Among those, the key one is the statement that the stability of a climate and environment favorable for human life cannot be ensured on Earth populated by seven billion people. We are glad that in 2009 the "Nauka i zhizn" ("Science and Life") magazine initiated a discussion of the most important problem of birthrate control and population numbers reduction as it published a biotic regulation interview (in Russian). The print version of this interview is available here.

We wish a Happy New Year to all our readers!

Biotic pump: 15 responses to the Spanish Meteorological Magazine and a few links

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0300

In October 2009 the Spanish Meteorological Magazine RAM approached us with an interview request. We received 15 questions. Our responses to these questions constitute an overview of the biotic pump theory as it stands in the end of 2009. RAM are intending to publish the responses in Spanish, after which we will be able to add the link to the interview page.

The following reflections on the biotic pump topic might be of interest to our readers:

Do rain forests make rain? Steve Mirski. Scientific American, July 2009.

D. Sheil and D. Murdiyarso's paper on biotic pump has been translated into Hungarian and is available here.

Faculty of 1000 Biology posted two evaluations on the biotic pump topic.

Your questions: IPCC AR4 and the runaway greenhouse effect

Wednesday, 11 Nov 2009 01:00:00 +0300

26. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report claims that "anthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible." However, I have read that CO₂ levels were once much higher on earth in the past. Why did the earth's atmosphere not experience "runaway" positive feedbacks during those eras? Permanent link.: Answered 11 November 2009.
Question author: Harold Vance.
Asked 5 November 2009.

Publications: Wind velocity profiles for hurricanes and tornadoes

Sunday, 8 Nov 2009 01:00:00 +0300

Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G. (2009) Condensation-induced kinematics and dynamics of cyclones, hurricanes and tornadoes. Physics Letters A, 373, 4201-4205. Abstract. PDF (0.4 Mb).

What is this paper about? Air pressure at the Earth's surface is approximately equal to air weight in the atmospheric column. Weight is proportional to the number of gas molecules in the column. Condensation removes water vapor from the gas phase, reduces the weight of air column and, hence, air pressure at the surface. In the result, air starts to stream from the neighborhood to the area where condensation takes place. It brings together more water vapor, which sustains condensation and low surface pressure. As long as there is enough water vapor in the incoming air, the winds will persist. Whether it will be a mild wind of the forest moisture pump, a violent hurricane or a tornado, will depend on the horizontal size of the area where condensation takes place. In this paper it is shown how the new theory of condensation-induced atmospheric circulation reproduces wind velocity profiles in hurricanes and tornadoes as dependent on the distance from the center of the considered wind structure.

Like animals feeding on plants, hurricanes and tornadoes feed on potential energy of water vapor and have to move on when it is locally depleted.

How does that relate to biotic regulation? Hurricanes and tornadoes arise as compact spatial and temporal fluctuations of the condensation process. Natural forests create a non-random spatial scale for condensation preventing dangerous fluctuations. Condensation no longer erratically occurs over a variety of scales. It is consistently more intense over the natural forest canopy than over the ocean. Hence, winds blow from the ocean to the forest-covered continent along several thousand kilometers. For such a large circulation pattern surface friction is substantial, so violent winds do not form. Circulation fluctuations are smoothed, hurricanes and tornadoes do not develop either on land or in the ocean. Extensive forest cover precludes formation of such weather extremes both on the continent and on the adjacent oceanic area by smoothing the temporal and spatial fluctuations of condensation processes. Forest recovery not only is a guarantee of a stable regional runoff and water cycle, but will also protect the continent against the threat of hurricanes and tornadoes.

Publications: A small-scale fight for truth mirrored in a Science Comment

Monday, 27 Oct 2009 01:00:00 +0300

Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L. (2009) Comment on "Energy uptake and allocation during ontogeny". Science, 325, 1206-a. Abstract. PDF (0.2 Mb).

A brief history of this publication is as follows. As early as in 2002 we noted that the ontogenetic growth model of Geoffrey West and Jim Brown's group (Gillooly et al. 2001, Nature) violates the energy conservation law. A relevant comment of ours was submitted to and rejected by Nature, then to and by Ecology Letters, due to the obvious reason that the topic of energy (non)-conservation cannot compete for space and the readers' attention with the other more important issues normally covered by the two journals. Two years later the critique was ultimately published in Ecological Modelling. In the same 2004 we also published a short comment in Ecology on Brown et al.'s MacArthur Award paper. There we cited the critique as "in press" and were explicit about our concerns that energy should be conserved at all times. Still that did not evoke any reaction from the criticized group. In 2006 the group published a paper in Functional Ecology (West et al. 2006) where, without citing our work, they explicitly refuted our concern about their incorrect interpretation of E_m (energy to build 1 g biomatter) insisting that it is equal to the energy content of biomatter and can be easily measured.

It took another four years of persistent pressure from our side that in 2008 in American Naturalist this group explicitly admitted the error (Moses et al. 2008) and cited our critique. At the same time in their latest model’s version published in Science (Hou et al. 2008) the group admitted that the original model was incorrect almost literally in our own words, but did not cite our critique as the source where the error was pointed out. Instead, they cited their own incorrect model (ref. 7 in Hou et al.). Since we found the renewed model incorrect as well, we submitted our Comment to Science. Using this opportunity, in the cover letter we also asked the Editors for a corrigendum, implying that here we might be dealing with a misprint rather than an intellectual expropriation, however, to no effect. Nevertheless, adhering to the spirit of open scientific discussion, Science published our above Comment.

What is it all about? Think that in modern scientific society it took six years for an error in a biological model to be admitted. It was an error though that related to the authorities and reputations of a visible and influential group of scientists. Now then, how long will the advancement of the biotic pump theory take, given that this theory does as little as re-analyzes and challenges several long established dogmas of modern meteorology, if you do not take an active part in it, in one way or another? It appears to be your business as well, our dear Reader, as forest moisture pump personally concerns every human being who drinks water, tea, coffee, beer or even exclusively Russian vodka, on a daily basis.