In this final week of the year we're reviewing the top five stories from 2017. If you missed them, here's your chance to read them.

If you read them and liked them previously, here's your chance to read them again.

We're starting with the most-read post on the Beef Producer website and moving down the list.

The No. 1 post was "More soil organic matter makes more rain," from Jan. 18. In this blog, the author recalled that some climatologists believe up to half the rain which falls on a continent comes from evapotranspiration and then reviewed data from a recent satellite study of soil moisture.

One of the most important findings from that newer study was this: "Researchers also say the data also show a significant feedback effect that can amplify the effects of both droughts and floods. When moisture evaporates from wet soil, it cools the soil in the process, but when the soil gets too dry that cooling diminishes, which can lead to hotter weather and heat waves that extend and deepen drought conditions. These things were known true at the micro level, meaning they have been measured with soil thermometers and moisture meters, but had never been quantified on a large scale."

To further break it down, the key phrase in this paragraph is "when the soil gets too dry that cooling diminishes, which can lead to hotter weather and heat waves that extend and deepen drought conditions."

Read the story at this link, and you can read and follow links to data from the satellite study in the link we included in the second paragraph.