From Raindrop to Sea with Stephen Rutt

Mark Stephen· Host0:00

[birds chirping] The Scotland Outdoors Podcast from BBC Radio Scotland.

Stephen Rutt· Guest0:04

[upbeat music] Somewhere before the beginning of the event, the fall of a raindrop lies its real beginning. Plant roots tap the rainwater from the soil, pumping it around their flesh, storing it until spent. Sated, they exhale, releasing droplets of water vapor back into the air. The hot breath of the earth helps, too. The sun loosens molecular bonds, charging water in puddles, ponds, bogs, marshes, rivers, canals, oceans with energy, making the surface molecules dance, coaxing them into the air, into evaporation. Rising high, it builds into an invisible sea in the sky that grows heavy slowly. [wind blowing] Vapor droplets coalesce around grains of dust, condensing back to liquid water. The cold eddying atmosphere turns the droplets to ice or jostles them, merging as they collide, growing heavier. Clouds are laden now, the sea and the sky made visible.

Mark Stephen· Host1:15

[wind blowing] The voice there of author Stephen Rutt. The central idea behind his new book, Waterlands, I think is brilliantly simple. It follows the journey of a single raindrop.