New data show a global soil moisture loss equal to several weeks of plant transpiration—something unexplained without accounting for ecosystem decline. It's time to move beyond the CO₂-only narrative.
Thank your for this analysis. It strikes as of a piece with the global heat anomaly. Science seems determined to go out of it's way to avoid any recognition of the role of living systems in their reports, which seems less than scientific to me. I was particularly struck by this paragraph:
--Turning to the water cycle, it admits in passing that “anthropogenic influences such as farming, large dams, and irrigation systems” are yet to be considered in the next-generation models and ends with a call to improve our understanding of “the impacts of climate change on the global water cycle” (neglecting those other anthropogenic influences yet another time).--
As you say, they go from recognizing that land use could be influencing climate, but rather than a call to improve that understanding, they flip it back to "the impacts of climate change (CO2) on the global water cycle."
This is a practice I've seen with the IPCC reports. For instance, the IPCC produced a Land Report. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ One would think it would look at the effect of land use on the climate, but my reading saw no such instance. It was all on how atmospheric CO2 influenced land. Yet, this report is used by some to say "the IPPC does look at land-use." In fact it doesn't, even when it says it does.
We have a full fledged pattern here, repeated pretty much everywhere.
"full fledged pattern here, repeated pretty much everywhere"
True, Rob, but I would say beginning the Perspective with a reference to Arrhenius was extraordinary even in this ubiquitous context. In fact, it is a universal opening.
One has to look only at the increase in flood events coupled with the increase in extreme precipitation make their way usually very destructively to the ocean to understand it is not adding to soil moisture. Living in a fire prone country watching all the ground litter being burned in controlled burns and one can understand there is little frictional drag to slow water to give it time to soak into heavy clay soils which can become hydrophobic under our baking sun. Looking at our precipitation alone is no reflection to the flora associated water cycle across much of our country
I have been throwing around this idea lately to see if it gets some traction , Nature to have its own currency as a way to stabilize its destruction.
without a price on nature demand will always drive deforestation and as countries become more wealthy so demand will increase. We all understand nature provides a service and could come to an agreement to a price, what we need is a nature currency like any country has and is provided to the countries that these natural services come from. Any country that then refuses to trade in it has the option but those that do can use it as part of their inter country capital exchange. If countries wish to generate more nature capital they could be given an advance on the future service and some of the poorest countries in the world will now have a reason and the funds to secure this service of nature for the future. If a country reduces this service then they lose an income stream. Sounds simple and easier in many ways than bitcoin and monitoring could be paid for in the same currency so as not to reduce the capital of any one country.
Johnathon Tonkin points out that any valuation may undermine something essentially priceless but we print money for almost anything else and call it progress at least this way it costs us nothing and opens up many opportunities.
Thank you, Theodore. In fact, a few years ago I was introduced to a concept of a "green ruble". Which would be backed up not by gold, but by natural ecosystems that really exist. Then destruction of these ecosystems would be equivalent to losing money (like during a ship reck with the gold drowning down). I have been contemplating this idea for quite some time and I could not persuade myself why it could not work. It could possibly work.
After all, all money is a social contract, with gold being the older one due to the fact that gold does not age. But natural ecosystems are also immortal.
What is needed is a critical mass of people for the new social contract.
Nature having its own currency would not tie any one country to natural interactions that take place across boarders and will not rely on end polluters paying to pollute. A universally acceptable currency like a crypto currency where instead of mining the process of currency creation is a reflection of natural benefit provided seems the only logical solution. I too have been running many concepts through my head and this is the only one with little or no draw backs and is not reliant on any one country for the process to work. A new social contract is an excellent way of seeing this but it is not really new just neglected. I will continue spreading this idea, many thanks
Anastassia, Thank you for walking back the cat on this misleading Science article. The importance of soil moisture and healthy soils cannot be understated.
It is astounding how science ignores what we are doing to the landscape and the lengths to which the CO2-only narrative is foisted on us.
Along with intact forest landscapes, the most hydrologically competent functional ecosystems, let’s include grasslands, the most soil (carbon sponge) competent functional ecosystems. Grasslands, covering about 40% of the terrestrial world, include savannas, pampas, steppes, prairies, rangelands, bogs, and tundra.
Grasslands are brittle ecosystems with a rainy season and a dry season. The dry season may be too long for tree growth.
The temperate grasslands of North America and Eastern Europe are known for rich soil. In African savannas, the loss of hoofed animals and elephants that break up plant fibers may result in the land turning to forests. However, only grasses can build an inch of soil in a year. The sticky carbohydrates hold mineral grains so far apart that four inches of soil can hold seven inches of rain.
In Greenland, the active evapotranspiration for the sixty-mile ribbon of tundra between the ice sheet and the sea prevents ice-melt water from reaching the sea, except for some in 2012. According to Greenlanders, more than 50% of the meltwater measured puddled on top of the ice sheet (900 gigatonnes over four years) refroze.
Have we already crossed the tipping point when what remains of natural ecosystems can no longer compensate for our accumulating disturbances? Are we not suffering more fires, deluges of rain, and fiercer storms?
As you point out, addressing land-use changes is imperative. Striving for net-zero CO2 will not be sufficient and may divert attention from the necessary work.
In general, when a paper is published behind a paywall, it means that the authors are ashamed of what they did. They may not have enough money to pay the sharks, but in that case they should at least place a publicly available version on ArXiv or other free access archives. I checked, but it doesn't seem they did.
Most people don't know such subtleties, but they matter -- arXiv now does not accept "Comments" -- UNLESS these are comments on something published in arXiv.
So, by not publishing in arXiv, you also guard your work against citable comments.
Because, with all due respect, eLetters in Science that don't even have a quotable link, but are described as "Go to the article's page and scroll down until you see the eLetter section" (reminds of Chekhov's "To Grandpa in the village, Konstantin Makarich -- на деревню дедушке, Константину Макарычу") is not how a scientific discussion should be organized.
What could cause such an enormous change in soil moisture over two years, from 2000 to 2002? On average, a loss of 800 gigatonnes of moisture per year (1600 overall) compared to the 1009 gigatonnes lost from 2003 to 2016, amounts to an average loss of 84 gigatonnes per year. What the #@&* is happening, globally? As you allude to, a significant threshold has been crossed, resulting in cascading adverse effects that followed.
Rob, according to the ERA5 data on which the study of Seo et al. 2025 is based, precipitation declined around 2000, while evaporation and transpiration remained more or less the same. This indicates almost unambiguously (excluding dramatic global changes in the infiltration that are unlikely to occur so rapidly) that the air circulation has changed, with less moisture delivered by winds from ocean to land.
Such changes can in principle occur instantaneously as the atmospheric circulation transits to another state (more commonly know switches are e.g. El Nino - La Nina). Here what we are seeing could be such a switch that occurred when ecosystem disturbance over land has reached a critical threshold.
According to the ERA5 data, precipitation experienced a steep decline around 2000, and remained low ever since (see also my response to Rob https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/we-are-losing-soil-moisture-why/comment/111453268 ). However, there are other experimental precipitation datasets that indicate different dynamics highlighting uncertainty. I am working on a post on what's happening with global precipitation, hopefully to be published soon.
Fascinating read. Thanks!
Thank your for this analysis. It strikes as of a piece with the global heat anomaly. Science seems determined to go out of it's way to avoid any recognition of the role of living systems in their reports, which seems less than scientific to me. I was particularly struck by this paragraph:
--Turning to the water cycle, it admits in passing that “anthropogenic influences such as farming, large dams, and irrigation systems” are yet to be considered in the next-generation models and ends with a call to improve our understanding of “the impacts of climate change on the global water cycle” (neglecting those other anthropogenic influences yet another time).--
As you say, they go from recognizing that land use could be influencing climate, but rather than a call to improve that understanding, they flip it back to "the impacts of climate change (CO2) on the global water cycle."
This is a practice I've seen with the IPCC reports. For instance, the IPCC produced a Land Report. https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ One would think it would look at the effect of land use on the climate, but my reading saw no such instance. It was all on how atmospheric CO2 influenced land. Yet, this report is used by some to say "the IPPC does look at land-use." In fact it doesn't, even when it says it does.
We have a full fledged pattern here, repeated pretty much everywhere.
Can't admit it's "Land Use" Rob as it may stop that GDP graph going up...
"full fledged pattern here, repeated pretty much everywhere"
True, Rob, but I would say beginning the Perspective with a reference to Arrhenius was extraordinary even in this ubiquitous context. In fact, it is a universal opening.
Thank you for another very stimulating article. I too am a fan of Ugo Bari ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9M2TgwTAVI ).
Thank you, Nastya! Again- insightful!!
One has to look only at the increase in flood events coupled with the increase in extreme precipitation make their way usually very destructively to the ocean to understand it is not adding to soil moisture. Living in a fire prone country watching all the ground litter being burned in controlled burns and one can understand there is little frictional drag to slow water to give it time to soak into heavy clay soils which can become hydrophobic under our baking sun. Looking at our precipitation alone is no reflection to the flora associated water cycle across much of our country
I have been throwing around this idea lately to see if it gets some traction , Nature to have its own currency as a way to stabilize its destruction.
without a price on nature demand will always drive deforestation and as countries become more wealthy so demand will increase. We all understand nature provides a service and could come to an agreement to a price, what we need is a nature currency like any country has and is provided to the countries that these natural services come from. Any country that then refuses to trade in it has the option but those that do can use it as part of their inter country capital exchange. If countries wish to generate more nature capital they could be given an advance on the future service and some of the poorest countries in the world will now have a reason and the funds to secure this service of nature for the future. If a country reduces this service then they lose an income stream. Sounds simple and easier in many ways than bitcoin and monitoring could be paid for in the same currency so as not to reduce the capital of any one country.
Johnathon Tonkin points out that any valuation may undermine something essentially priceless but we print money for almost anything else and call it progress at least this way it costs us nothing and opens up many opportunities.
Thank you, Theodore. In fact, a few years ago I was introduced to a concept of a "green ruble". Which would be backed up not by gold, but by natural ecosystems that really exist. Then destruction of these ecosystems would be equivalent to losing money (like during a ship reck with the gold drowning down). I have been contemplating this idea for quite some time and I could not persuade myself why it could not work. It could possibly work.
After all, all money is a social contract, with gold being the older one due to the fact that gold does not age. But natural ecosystems are also immortal.
What is needed is a critical mass of people for the new social contract.
Nature having its own currency would not tie any one country to natural interactions that take place across boarders and will not rely on end polluters paying to pollute. A universally acceptable currency like a crypto currency where instead of mining the process of currency creation is a reflection of natural benefit provided seems the only logical solution. I too have been running many concepts through my head and this is the only one with little or no draw backs and is not reliant on any one country for the process to work. A new social contract is an excellent way of seeing this but it is not really new just neglected. I will continue spreading this idea, many thanks
thank you for your dedication to discussing these issues. it's important work. keep it up
Anastassia, Thank you for walking back the cat on this misleading Science article. The importance of soil moisture and healthy soils cannot be understated.
It is astounding how science ignores what we are doing to the landscape and the lengths to which the CO2-only narrative is foisted on us.
Along with intact forest landscapes, the most hydrologically competent functional ecosystems, let’s include grasslands, the most soil (carbon sponge) competent functional ecosystems. Grasslands, covering about 40% of the terrestrial world, include savannas, pampas, steppes, prairies, rangelands, bogs, and tundra.
Grasslands are brittle ecosystems with a rainy season and a dry season. The dry season may be too long for tree growth.
The temperate grasslands of North America and Eastern Europe are known for rich soil. In African savannas, the loss of hoofed animals and elephants that break up plant fibers may result in the land turning to forests. However, only grasses can build an inch of soil in a year. The sticky carbohydrates hold mineral grains so far apart that four inches of soil can hold seven inches of rain.
In Greenland, the active evapotranspiration for the sixty-mile ribbon of tundra between the ice sheet and the sea prevents ice-melt water from reaching the sea, except for some in 2012. According to Greenlanders, more than 50% of the meltwater measured puddled on top of the ice sheet (900 gigatonnes over four years) refroze.
Have we already crossed the tipping point when what remains of natural ecosystems can no longer compensate for our accumulating disturbances? Are we not suffering more fires, deluges of rain, and fiercer storms?
As you point out, addressing land-use changes is imperative. Striving for net-zero CO2 will not be sufficient and may divert attention from the necessary work.
In general, when a paper is published behind a paywall, it means that the authors are ashamed of what they did. They may not have enough money to pay the sharks, but in that case they should at least place a publicly available version on ArXiv or other free access archives. I checked, but it doesn't seem they did.
Most people don't know such subtleties, but they matter -- arXiv now does not accept "Comments" -- UNLESS these are comments on something published in arXiv.
So, by not publishing in arXiv, you also guard your work against citable comments.
Because, with all due respect, eLetters in Science that don't even have a quotable link, but are described as "Go to the article's page and scroll down until you see the eLetter section" (reminds of Chekhov's "To Grandpa in the village, Konstantin Makarich -- на деревню дедушке, Константину Макарычу") is not how a scientific discussion should be organized.
In contrast to Seo et al. 2025, Goessling et al. 2024 whose paper on changes in the cloud cover we commented upon https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/seeing-forests-through-clouds-a-300, did publish in arXiv.
Anastassia,
What could cause such an enormous change in soil moisture over two years, from 2000 to 2002? On average, a loss of 800 gigatonnes of moisture per year (1600 overall) compared to the 1009 gigatonnes lost from 2003 to 2016, amounts to an average loss of 84 gigatonnes per year. What the #@&* is happening, globally? As you allude to, a significant threshold has been crossed, resulting in cascading adverse effects that followed.
Rob, according to the ERA5 data on which the study of Seo et al. 2025 is based, precipitation declined around 2000, while evaporation and transpiration remained more or less the same. This indicates almost unambiguously (excluding dramatic global changes in the infiltration that are unlikely to occur so rapidly) that the air circulation has changed, with less moisture delivered by winds from ocean to land.
Such changes can in principle occur instantaneously as the atmospheric circulation transits to another state (more commonly know switches are e.g. El Nino - La Nina). Here what we are seeing could be such a switch that occurred when ecosystem disturbance over land has reached a critical threshold.
Decrease of rain and decrease of clouds? But more water vapor?
Great comparison of data. The total annual precipitation decreased including flooding. When this started?
According to the ERA5 data, precipitation experienced a steep decline around 2000, and remained low ever since (see also my response to Rob https://bioticregulation.substack.com/p/we-are-losing-soil-moisture-why/comment/111453268 ). However, there are other experimental precipitation datasets that indicate different dynamics highlighting uncertainty. I am working on a post on what's happening with global precipitation, hopefully to be published soon.