When I was in second grade our teacher showed us how a terrarium worked.
The terrarium looked like a large glass bottle laid on its side with a bunch of small plants growing inside it. It was pretty and green and magical.
She said if there was enough water in the bottle to moisten the soil, it would create rain for the plants. It worked like this: The plants sucked up the water in the soil through their roots and transpired the moisture through their leaves into the “atmosphere” where the moisture rose up to the top of the bottle and dripped back down as “rain” replenishing the soil that grew the plants.
We learned that moisture in the ground is what makes the rain; trees transpiring their moisture into the sky makes the clouds, the clouds make the rain and the rains feed the soil and the soil feeds the trees which feeds the clouds…you get the picture. It is a cool, reciprocal relationship between earth and sky.
Just add water.
So when I hear talk about conserving water to adapt to a hotter, drier climate, I have to wonder…”What can we do to make the climate cooler and wetter?”
In our own little yard, we have many trees that shade the ground. If you can shade the ground from the sun it drops the temperature by 10-plus degrees. Watering a tree deeply once a week will transpire coolness from both the moisture in the ground and the shady leaves above. Trees are like giant swamp coolers. The water table in Moab is very shallow. Deep watering our trees helps to replenish our aquifer.
Besides, trees are freaking awesome!
Not only will a tree shade the ground but when they get tall they can shade the walls and the roof of your house. Less energy is spent cooling your home. Trees fill the air with birdsong and the rustle of the breeze.
In our zeal to conserve water, we are losing the benefit of cool, green moisture-transpiring surfaces.
This is especially true where many condos are being built. Where there were once shady trees and grasses, there are now dry, heat-absorbing paved driveways and gravel landscaping hosting a few desert plants as a strategy to “conserve” water. The hotter and drier the surface, the drier the atmosphere, the fewer the clouds, the less rain…you get the picture.
Trees offer shade, replenish moisture, cool down the yard and contribute to making clouds. Trees cool the climate.
I hope all seven-year-olds get to learn the water cycle.
Kaki Hunter
Moab
