This phenomenon, more pronounced in the driest areas and those where the most intense human activity, is in the first place the Brazilian part of the forest, according to a study published in “Nature”.
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A new study published Monday, March 7 in the Nature Scientific Journal reinforces fears about the survival of the Amazon. Three researchers at the University of Exeter, the United Kingdom, the Postdam Climate Impact Research Institute and the Technical University of Munich, Germany, were interested in the phenomenon of resilience they define As “the capacity of the Amazon forest to find a stable state after disturbances such as climate events or droughts”.
“Pronounced loss of the resilience of the Amazon forest since the early 2000s”, the study focused on the Amazon due to its role in climate. The great rainforest would remember about 90 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, captured mainly in its trees and partly in its soil, which represents several years of CO emissions 2 worldwide.
“We worked from satellite images of the last twenty years that were marked by fires and two important droughts in 2005 and 2010. We then measured this resilience capacity of the forest using the forest. Indicators that, in our opinion, are closely related to resilience, “explains the mathematician and geographer of Exeter Chris Boulton University. In particular, the co-authors have evaluated the water presence, the evolution of the general state of vegetation and the photosynthetic activity of the species.
“More carbon dioxide”
Their conclusions are a new alert for the international community and in particular for the South of the American continent, which would attend the first to a radical transformation of its climate as a result of the upheaval of the Amazon ecosystem. According to their calculations, 75% of the Amazon rainforest now seem to show a loss of resilience. This loss is more pronounced in the driest areas and where human activity is more intense, which in the first place concerns the southeastern forest, an area that corresponds to Brazil. “This loss of resilience is at work, without necessarily appearing a significant change in biomass or forest cover. We have been able to see in yet preserved areas,” says Chris Boulton.
This lower regeneration capacity allows researchers to extrapolate other teachings on the general state of the forest and its future. According to the physicist Niklas Boers, associated with the Postdam Climate Impact Research Institute, “these results combined with IPCC Projections [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], which provide less rainfall in the Next decades, mean that impacts could be even more serious than expected “. And conclude that the rocking point of the tropical forest in a savannah could also be closer than what is considered considered.
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