Lappy, on the Climate thread I proved a direct correlation between deforestation and rainfall in the WA southwest.
Trees not only sequester Co2,they are also evapo-transpirers.
I heard only yesterday on the abc Lappy that deforestation globally accounts for 10 percent of climate change.
This makes perfect sense to me Lappy.
Trees Humidify Air
Among plants, trees are by far the most effective evapo-transpirers. Complementing oceans, trees form the other half of the planet-wide system known as the rain or water cycle. A typical tree breathes out 250 to 400 or more gallons of water per day through the amazingly large surface area of its leaves (an acre of forest can contain well over 1,000 acres of leaf surface area).
It's almost impossible to overstate trees' ability to humidify air and thereby maintain the rain cycle far from oceans. While some rainfall evaporates directly from the ground and from small plants (this can amount to most of a light rain), evapotranspiration by trees accounts for the great majority of inland rain.
Even near oceans, trees are vitally important to re-humidification and rain. When European settlers removed the high forests from the island of Maui, for instance, the once heavily-forested island immediately downwind (Kahoolawe) quickly became a desert island because its source of rain had been the trees on Maui—not the ocean surrounding both islands.
No Trees, No Rain
If trees are clearcut over large areas, therefore, rains slow or stop downwind, describing the situation existing now over most of the U.S. Southwest. This has not always been the case here, even relatively recently. Our present Southwest is drier than that of just a couple hundred years ago—remember, our popular view of the Old Southwest comes from cowboy movies, all filmed in modern degraded landscapes.
http://permaculture-and-sanity.com/pcarticles/trees-and-the-water-cycle.php
Lappy Indonesia is one of the worst offenders in regards to deforestation.
Indonesia's fires labelled a 'crime against humanity' as 500,000 suffer
http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...against-humanity-hundreds-of-thousands-suffer
Raider
