Understanding How Plants Use Water in California's Redwood Forests
In California's Coast Ranges plants not only use water directly from rainstorms, but also harvest the thick fog that blankets these mountains. UC researchers are investigating how different plants in the forest, from the tall redwoods to the ferns of the forest floor use different water sources, so we can understand how climate change will alter the forest as the patterns of rainstorms and fog events changes in the future. Series: "UCTV Prime" [Science] [Show ID: 32514]
Sustainable California (Video)
en-usAugust 08, 2017
The search for water in space has been quite successful; traces of ice have been found on Mars and water vapour has been found in several places in our galaxy. Water vapour was also recently detected on a planet outside our Solar System for the first time. It was an important discovery, although the planet is far too hot to be able to support life. Heavy water, which is also found on comets, poses the question of whether we can trace the origins of the water on earth through the heavy water found on objects like asteroids and comets. The Herschel space observatory, due for launch within a year’s time, will help explore the theory that water vapour plays an important role in regions of space where interstellar clouds of gas and dust are forming new stars.