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The Amazon rain forest is reaching a critical “tipping point,” according to researchers, beyond which it may no longer be able to recover from events such as droughts and wildfires.
New satellite data analysis shows that this would result in permanent loss of large swathes of rain forest, with disastrous consequences for climate change, biodiversity, and the environment.
The study was published in Published Monday in Nature Climate ChangeIt looked at satellite data from the Amazon, which shows that vegetation has not been altered by human activities like logging, between 1991 and 2016. It was found that areas that have suffered droughts or wildfires in the Amazon have taken longer to recover from than they were before. The forest areas that are drier have seen the most decline since the early 2000s.
The study’s authors warned that if climate change continues, some of these areas might stop growing back as rain forest altogether, a phenomenon known as “dieback.” This could have dramatic worldwide consequences, as it would mean much less carbon dioxide — the most prevalent greenhouse gas that causes global warming — would be absorbed by growing trees.
“It’s worth reminding ourselves that if it gets to that tipping point and we commit to losing the Amazon rain forest, then we get a significant feedback to global climate change,” Timothy Lenton, an author of the study and director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter in the U.K., said at a news briefing.
“Many researchers have theorized that an Amazon tipping point could be reached, but our study provides vital empirical evidence that we are approaching that threshold,” said co-author Niklas Boers, a professor at the Technical University of Munich in Germany. “Seeing such a resilience loss in observations is worrying. The Amazon rain forest stores huge amounts of carbon that could be released in the case of even partial dieback.”
The Amazon covers more South America’s 2 million square miles. The destruction or disappearance of Amazon could result in the release of An estimated 90 billion tons carbon dioxideThis is equivalent to several years of global emission. The increased temperatures have made the trees more susceptible to droughts and wildfires, due to higher water evaporation.
The Amazon is also suffering from increased deforestation due to the current Brazilian President Jair Bolsanaro. Bolsanaro is a right-wing advocate and supporter of logging, ranching, farming in the rain forest.
While the researchers cautioned that the many different factors involved in causing an Amazon dieback make the scenario impossible to predict with certainty, Boers said, “the Amazon is definitely one of the fastest of these tipping elements in the climate system.”
Although this threshold is not yet reached, it can be avoided if governments take quick action to reduce emissions.
