Anastassia Makarievato on forests, biotic pump and direct cooling

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David Spratt

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Nov 3, 2025, 7:11:55 PM (2 days ago) Nov 3
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Hi, 

Does anyone know enough on the work of Anastassia Makarievato on forest and direct cooling to assess its efficacy to offer an opinion?

She postulates that forests could have a *substantial* direct cooling effect on top of their importance for carbon sequestration and biodiversity. She argues that the extra warming in the more sophisticated climate models that better model clouds is from the loss of cooling from forests (as oposed to aerosols??). 

The best assessment of the credibility of her work is this Fred Pearce article from 2020:


In this article, Pearce says that:
  • The biotic pump is a theory that does not yet have experimental/observational practical proof.

  • That trees transpire and create a forest water cycle — trees as fountains — is agreed by all.

  • The contention is whether forest transpiration drives atmospheric circulation (or to what extent).  All agree that this is a theory and there has been no experimental work to prove its existence or extent:

    • "The climate model community hasn't embraced it, but the Russians are the best theoreticians in the world, so we need proper field experiments to test it." Yet no one, including Makarieva, has yet proposed clearly what such a test might look like. 

  • As some of the scientists say, it likely makes some contribution to circulation, but the extent is radically uncertain and may be relatively small. "This is not a mysterious effect," he says. "It is small and included in some atmospheric models."


I am basically looking for peer-reviewed work that supports her propositions, or debunks them.  Or alternatively expert elicitations?? 

Thanks,

David Spratt

H simmens

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Nov 3, 2025, 7:22:29 PM (2 days ago) Nov 3
to David Spratt, rob de laet, healthy-planet-action-coalition
David,

I’m copying Ron de Laet who coauthored Cooling the Climate, How to revive the biosphere and cool the Earth in 20 years which is based in part on her work. 


Herb

Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com



Herb Simmens
Author of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future
“A SciencePoem and an Inspiration.” Kim Stanley Robinson
@herbsimmens
HerbSimmens.com

On Nov 3, 2025, at 7:11 PM, 'David Spratt' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC) <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> wrote:


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Bru Pearce

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Nov 4, 2025, 5:27:18 AM (yesterday) Nov 4
to H simmens, David Spratt, rob de laet, healthy-planet-action-coalition

I have observed Peter Bunyard's experiments and work firsthand and I find it extremely compelling. At the global tipping points event in Exeter we had some discussions about scaling up his experiments using the Eden project bio domes I'm afraid I haven't had the time to follow up on this yet it, was unfortunate that Tim Smit had to cancel his appearance at the tipping points in Exeter. I did find some general interest amongst some of the academia as a project to present to their postgraduate students to take on.

 

The theory does raise an interesting question, 7000 years ago there would have been almost twice as much forest cover on earth as there is now. This implies that there has to be some controlling mechanism to prevent over cooling. My suspicion is that the integrated biological climate management engine, being the whole of Earth's biomass had a regulating capability with huge resilience through its overcapacity.

 

What we are experiencing now with rapid warming is that natural systems are being overwhelmed and failing to be able to self- regulate you might describe this as the planet's wet bulb moment.

 

 

 

Bru Pearce

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rob de laet

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Nov 4, 2025, 5:35:35 AM (yesterday) Nov 4
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Jan Umsonst

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Nov 4, 2025, 8:17:19 AM (yesterday) Nov 4
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Hi David - follow it closely and there exists a recent review on the matter, and they take Anastassias work very seriously as the evidence is increasing that a biotic pump is at work:


"Vegetation–climate feedbacks across scales"; https://nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.15286


Checked the citations and it has already 19 citations - did not check them all, but the first 10 were using their results for their arguments...


This one is also another indication on the importance: Amazon drougth decreases trade winds, thereby supporting high tropical SSTs which feedback on the drought via moisture transport enhancing it - they speak of non-linear:


"Nonlinear interactions between the Amazon River basin and the Tropical North Atlantic at interannual timescales"; https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.02102


Have more material catalogued...


All the best

Jan

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Ron Baiman

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Nov 4, 2025, 1:34:03 PM (yesterday) Nov 4
to Jan Umsonst, healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com, Suzanne Reed
Hi Dave,

For what it's worth this is from the HPAC cooling paper: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/4/1/kgae014/7731760?searchresult=1
 (written by co-author Suzanne Reed - cc'd above): 

"Afforestation, Reforestation, and Soil and Vegetation Restoration (ARSVR) can increase evapotranspiration that can reduce a region’s peak temperatures in a process sometimes referred to as “the terrestrial biotic pump” [95–98]. Increased evapotranspiration can also increase cloud formation in some regions, the increased albedo of which can add to the cooling influence. The extent to which afforestation reduces dryland albedo versus. decreasing thermal radiation and the timeframe over which these effects will occur influence its overall cooling potential [99]. The interaction of temperature, wind, vegetation species, soil water retention capacity, water availability, current land use albedo, and altitude are critical factors in determining where and how this solution could and should be applied [100–102]. Incorporating biochar into agricultural soils can increase soil water retention and thus increase the potential cooling influence via evapotranspiration [103].
  • ARSVR involves both solar radiation and thermal radiation to exert a cooling influence. Additional co-benefits can include run-off and erosion reduction, flood protection, carbon drawdown and sequestration, and promotion of increased biodiversity [104, 105]. There is some tension between the need for agricultural land versus. afforestation considering the increasing demand for food and impacts on local economies. Implementation would best aim for a complementarity achieved through a global land stewardship approach that balances need while maximizing benefits of afforestation, reforestation, regenerative agriculture, and agroforestry [102, 106]."




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