amazon

Mar

2023

Tropical deforestation causes large reductions in observed precipitation

A new paper appeared »Tropical deforestation causes large reductions in observed precipitation«, indicating how (much) deforestation and precipitations in the tropics are linked:

Here we show reduced precipitation over deforested regions across the tropics. Our results arise from a pan-tropical assessment of the impacts of 2003–2017 forest loss on precipitation using satellite, station-based and reanalysis datasets. The effect of deforestation on precipitation increased at larger scales, with satellite datasets showing that forest loss caused robust reductions in precipitation at scales greater than 50 km. The greatest declines in precipitation occurred at 200 km, the largest scale we explored, for which 1 percentage point of forest loss reduced precipitation by 0.25 ± 0.1 mm per month. […] We estimate that future deforestation in the Congo will reduce local precipitation by 8–10% in 2100. Our findings provide a compelling argument for tropical forest conservation to support regional climate resilience.

Oct

2022

The rainforest’s water pump

It’s (almost) all about forests and water: An investigation of naturally occurring water recycling in rainforests finally marries the results of global climate models with observations. Alarmingly, it also suggests that deforestation can greatly reduce tropical rainfall.

Join us next week for much more insights in our Climate Landscapes Conference.

Jun

2022

Self-amplified Amazon forest loss due to vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks

Vicious cycle of destruction in the Amazon:

Here we show that the risk of self-amplified Amazon forest loss increases nonlinearly with dry-season intensification. […] Our results suggest that the risk of self-amplified forest loss is reduced with increasing heterogeneity in the response of forest patches to reduced rainfall. […] Although our findings do not indicate that the projected rainfall changes for the end of the twenty-first century will lead to complete Amazon dieback, they suggest that frequent extreme drought events have the potential to destabilize large parts of the Amazon forest.

Jun

2022

Land use and land cover changes and their impacts on surface-atmosphere interactions in Brazil: A systematic review

Major land use and land cover changes in Brazil and their impacts on precipitation and evapotranspiration:

For the Amazon biome, decreasing dry season P and in annual ET were reported. In the Cerrado biome, decreasing P in the wet and dry seasons and decreasing dry season ET were the most common result. For the Atlantic Forest biome, increasing annual P and increasing wet season ET, likely due to reforestation, were reported.

May

2022

Amazonia´s flying rivers – no forest, no water

Interesting and informative documentary: The Amazon rainforest is not only the earth’s green lung (absorbing and storing carbon dioxide from the air and converting it to oxygen) it is also its air conditioner: intact forests suck in rain clouds from the Atlantic and evaporate water. In this way they cool the earth. Without forest, no water: if more and more forest disappears, this phenomenon of ‘flying rivers’ acting like a gigantic water pump can no longer exist. Scientists, politicians and environmental activists explain the fragile balance.