Did you know water is distributed through trees? Our forests pump millions of gallons of water into the air. And a single tree pumps dozens of gallons of water from its roots to its leaves each day. How is this possible?
The hot sun on the leaves causes water to evaporate from the leaves. This evaporating water creates a vacuum within the leaves’ cells. Water molecules like to “stick together”, and this vacuum pulls the water far up into a tree – similar to a drinking straw. Water molecules have been tracked moving as fast as 25 miles per hour up through the trunk of a tree!
Over 90% of the water which moves from the ground into the leaves of a tree evaporates from the surface of the leaves. Only 2% of the water is used for photosynthesis. It is this massive amount of evaporation that provides the driving force to suck so much water out of the ground and carry it hundreds of feet into the air. Even a small grove of trees removes tons of water from the soil and releases it into the air each day. It has been estimated that an apple tree gives off 16,000 pounds of water to the air during one growing season.
This is an amazing system involving capillary flow, hydrogen bonding of water molecules, osmosis, and vacuum pressure. Trees are God’s method of humidifying the world and an amazing example of God’s engineering excellence!
(Source: Inspired Evidence- Donald DeYoung Weather and the Bible 1992 pp.58)
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