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In a recent video filmed in Sacre-Coeur, Quebec, Mother Nature appears to be gasping for air. Even the surrounding trees are struggling to stand under the literal force of nature.
Is Earth breathing a collective sigh? To be fair, she's had a pretty rough 2018 after a string of record-breaking hurricanes, destructive wildfires and a dire warning from scientists about catastrophic climate change.
Actually it's not that dramatic at all, and it happens all the time, like in this 2015 video that was shot in Nova Scotia.
breathing earth www.youtube.com
The spectacle can be easily explained by inclement weather.
"During a rain- and wind-storm event, the ground becomes saturated, 'loosening' the soil's cohesion with the roots as the wind is blowing on a tree's crown," Mark Vanderwouw, an arborist at Shady Lane Expert Tree Care in Ontario, told The Weather Network.
"The wind is trying to 'push' the trees over, and as the force is transferred to the roots, the ground begins to 'heave.' If the winds were strong enough and lasted long enough more roots would start to break and eventually some of the trees would topple," he added.
Simply, the strong winds are moving the trees and causing the root system to lift the forest floor, making it look like the earth is breathing.
Don't be too disappointed that the earth isn't actually huffing and puffing. You might remember from biology class that trees and plants do actually respire when they take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen through photosynthesis.
Also, the bacteria and other organisms that live in soils respire, too. Interestingly, a study published in August in the journal Nature determined that as temperatures rise, Earth's soil is also "breathing" more heavily.
"Soils around the globe are responding to a warming climate, which in turn can convert more carbon into carbon dioxide which enters the atmosphere. Depending on how other components of the carbon cycle might respond due to climate warming, these soil changes can potentially contribute to even higher temperatures due to a feedback loop," said lead author Ben Bond-Lamberty of the Joint Global Change Research Institute, in a press release of the study.
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The fight between the Standing Rock Sioux and the owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline is back on, as the tribe opposes a pipeline expansion that it argues would increase the risk of an oil spill.
A middle-aged married couple in China was diagnosed with pneumonic plague, a highly infectious disease similar to bubonic plague, which ravaged Europe in the middle ages, as CNN reported.
Dairy aisles have exploded with milk and milk alternative options over the past few years, and choosing the healthiest milk isn't just about the fat content.
Whether you're looking beyond cow's milk for health reasons or dietary preferences or simply want to experiment with different options, you may wonder which type of milk is healthiest for you.
Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist whose weekly school strikes have spurred global demonstrations, has cut short her tour of the Americas and set sail for Europe to attend COP25 in Madrid next month, as The New York Times reported.
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At least 1,688 dams across the U.S. are in such a hazardous condition that, if they fail, could force life-threatening floods on nearby homes, businesses, infrastructure or entire communities, according to an in-depth analysis of public records conducted by the the Associated Press.
By Sabrina Kessler
Far-reaching allegations about how a climate-sinning American multinational could shamelessly lie to the public about its wrongdoing mobilized a small group of New York students on a cold November morning. They stood in front of New York's Supreme Court last week to follow the unprecedented lawsuit against ExxonMobil.
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By Alex Robinson
Leah Garcés used to hate poultry farmers.
The animal rights activist, who opposes factory farming, had an adversarial relationship with chicken farmers until around five years ago, when she sat down to listen to one. She met a poultry farmer called Craig Watts in rural North Carolina and learned that the problems stemming from factory farming extended beyond animal cruelty.
Temperatures plunged rapidly across the U.S. this week and around 70 percent of the population is expected to experience temperatures around freezing Wednesday.