Largely ignored by scientific community, new theory could change how future generations view forests
Two Russian scientists, Victor Gorshkov and Anastassia Makarieva of the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics, have published a revolutionary theory that turns modern meteorology on its head, positing that forests--and their capacity for condensation--are actually the main driver of winds rather than temperature. While this model has widespread implications for numerous sciences, none of them are larger than the importance of conserving forests, which are shown to be crucial to 'pumping' precipitation from one place to another. The theory explains, among other mysteries, why deforestation around coastal regions tends to lead to drying in the interior.
Although the theory has garnered a wide contrast of reactions--from dismissal to accolades--it has so far been mostly ignored by the greater scientific community since first published in a small journal in 2007. A new paper in Bioscience by Douglas Sheil and Daniel Murdiyarso attempts to remedy this by introducing (or re-introducing) the theory to scientists of all fields, many of whom have probably never heard of the theory despite its radical and widespread ...