Funnily enough ( or maybe not so) while we hear about the effect of global warming by increasing greenhouse gases (valid or not) there is one topic that I find discussed very little. And this does have a direct impact on our environment and climatic conditions and is difficult to argue against. Concrete, bitumen and steel.
I'll tell you a little story, and see what you think.
Once upon a time our verdant little country (well around the edges anyway), and many other countries, were covered with a funny sort of green stuff called trees, shrubs and woody plants, that had the remarkable ability of taking in radiant energy (sunlight) and converting a considerable portion of it to chemical energy (the molecular bonds of sugar molecules) and storing it for later use, or until it was further converted after millions of years to another type of quiescent heat storage called coal or oil.
Now sunlight is funny sort of stuff. If its not absorbed completely, some of it is reflected as light (maybe with a few colours deleted) and some of it is re-radiated as heat. Now when we had plenty of these green things quite a considerable amount was not re-radiated but absorbed and used and stored, sometimes for all intent and purpose, permanenty. And not only that. Any light that made it past the leaves of these funny green things called trees, often fell on a ground covered in moistish decomposing leaves. Now water is a great medium for temporarily holding heat til certain organisms can use it to break down dead and dying leaves that in turn help blanket bare ground and prevent it from heating up, drying out and blowing away (but that's another story).
So here we have these green things, growing, and acting like a living heat sink. Sure some light and heat was reflected back or re-radiated, but eventually a balance was reached whereby what wasn't used was eventually re-radiated back out into space. This balance was achieved by a number of things but principally by certain gases in our atmosphere that acted like a sort of regulator valve or "space" blanket made of gaseous wool.
Now along comes Mr Natural human. Cutting down the green things and replacing them with hard things to make his/her life easier. Now one of the problems with these hard things, like bitumen, concrete, steel and roofing tiles, is that while many do absorb light, that light isn't transduced into chemical energy but is re-radiated directly back into the atmosphere as heat. But that's ok as our space blanket made up of gaseous wool will only hold in so much heat. (But what happens when we start to put more gas wool into the blanket. But I won't go there, that is for another disussion). Any way back to our re-radiating heat.
What is that heat doing? Well its likely to be doing a number of things. Remember our once upon a time green things? Well when they were here regulating how much heat was re-radiated back into the atmosphere, they were also releasing huge amount of water into the atmoshere as vapourous sweat. Yes plants sweat. Huge amounts of sweat. And like many things in nature like calls to like and soon this sweat started to pool together into tiny droplets which absorbed heat from the atmosphere which cooled the atmosphere which caused more droplets to form which called to other droplets who joined with them until clouds started to form. And when the cloud droblets were heavy enough they fell as rain, cooling the earth and carrying the heat they absorbed into the soild where it raised the vast bulk of the soils temperature just a tiny tiny tiny bit. So these green growing things were not just energy transducers but they were rain bringers too, which helped plants grow by replenishing the water tables and also by removing some of the latent heat in the atmosphere and putting it in a place where the temperature was normally very stable and could tak e alot of extra heat without detriment.
So what is happening now. Have you noticed over the past few years that we are getting less and less rainfall...hmmm could be a long term variant we aren't aware of. If you were to check the rainfall records for the past 150 years (yep longer than that actuallY) in some places in our country the rainfall is less than half now of what was received 150 years ago.
Oh and when it does rain, areas that were once relatively unknown for flooding now flood regularly. Maybe it's because the water can no longer get into the ground (the best place to store water) and is funnelled away to somewhere where it's someone elses problem.
Have you ever stood way off in the distance on the top of a hill and noticed the heat haze coming of a town or city? Funny I cant recall seeing that coming off a forest. I wonder how high that column of heated air goes up? Oh and it's not just convected heat, it's radiated heat as well. Far more heat than our poor little sweat drops can absorb and still join with other sweat drops, even if there were as many as there was before. So the thing I can these cities is rain deterers. But unfortunately it's not just the cities. If there did happen to be a lovely moist airstream heading towards the city the column of hot rising air may well force that moist airstream to divide and go around it, there by creating a rain shadow behind the city. I bet thing would get dry there, and hotter without the rainfall to cool the air down.
I've waffled on long enough so I'll leave the rest of the story for another day, or maybe you'd like to make the rest up for yourself. Because after all it's just a story, isn't it?
Here is the most difinitive reference you'll ever need 
don't mind the cold much Just WANT clear frigid upper Trop, Strata, & Iono Sphere's for excellent viewing & pin-point Imaging 
![[1ponders]'s Avatar](../vbiis/customavatars/avatar45_9.gif){kind=avatar}
