Changes in temperature and precipitation due to rapid deforestation in the Amazon rainforest could have effects as far away as the Tibetan plateau and Antarctica, researcher found
“Rapid deforestation of the Amazon rainforest could influence the temperature and precipitation over the Tibetan plateau 15,000 kilometres away. Saini Yang at Beijing Normal University in China and her colleagues analysed global climatological data from 1979 to 2019 to identify correlations in temperature and precipitation between the Amazon rainforest and other areas. Such links are called “teleconnections”. They focused on the Amazon rainforest in particular because of its significance as a major carbon sink and as a climatic “tipping point” that could see forest turn to savannah beyond a certain threshold of warming and human-driven deforestation. The researchers found that since 1979, warm temperatures in the Amazon correlated with warm temperatures over the Tibetan plateau and the West Antarctic ice sheet; more precipitation in the Amazon was associated with less precipitation in those regions.”
