Time then for another rousing article that doesn’t mention beavers but SHOULD from Phys.org.

New feedback phenomenon found to drive increasing drought and aridity

A new Columbia Engineering study indicates that the world will experience more frequent and more extreme drought and aridity than currently experienced in the coming century, exacerbated by both climate change and land-atmosphere processes. The researchers demonstrate that concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity are largely driven by a series of land-atmosphere processes and feedback loops. They also found that land-atmosphere feedbacks would further intensify concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity in a warmer climate. The study was published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Are you following this? What they found is that DRY soil leads to the kind of conditions that cause MORE dry soil.

Soil drought, represented by very low soil moisture, and atmospheric aridity, represented by very high vapor pressure deficit, a combination of high temperature and low atmospheric humidity, are the two main stressors that drive widespread vegetation mortality and reduced terrestrial carbon uptake. Concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity is a time period when soil moisture is extremely low and vapor pressure deficit is extremely high.

Guess what makes the opposite of arid soil? Changing the quality of the soil where they live, around their home and under the home?

“Concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity have dramatic impacts on natural vegetation, agriculture, industry, and public health,” says Pierre Gentine, associate professor of earth and environmental engineering and affiliated with the Earth Institute. “Future intensification of concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity would be disastrous for ecosystems and greatly impact all aspects of our lives.”

It turns out that dry soil is more important to climate change than DROUGHT. More important than heatwaves. Letting the soil dry out starts all these other balls rolling towards disaster. Too bad there isn’t some free rodent that we could put to work all across America to keep the soil moist.

The PNAS study highlights the importance of soil moisture variability in enabling a series of processes and feedback loops affecting the Earth’s near-surface climate.

Add this to the list of things beavers could be doing for us everyday, everywhere if we would just be so kind as to stop killing them. Let’s not call it kindness. Hell. Let’s call it “Self-Interest”. I’m getting more and more convinced that this is our only truly renewable resource.

Yesterday it occurred to me that in all of the internet there should be a photo like this. There wasn’t. I thought that should change. Take my word for it and whatever you do don’t look for photos of beavers by candelight anywhere else.