SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY
Is the Amazon Transforming Before Our Eyes?
from Scientific American
The Amazon rainforest is in flux, thanks to agricultural expansion and climate change. In
other words, humans have "become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon Basin," as an
international consortium of scientists wrote in a review of the state of the science on the
world's largest rainforest published in Nature on January 19. (Scientific
American is part of Nature Publishing Group.) The dry season is growing longer in areas
where humans have been clearing the trees--as has water discharge from Amazon River tributaries
in those regions. Multiyear and more frequent severe droughts, like those in 2005 and 2010, are
killing trees that humans don't cut down as well as increasing the risks of more common fires
(both man-made and otherwise).
The trees are also growing fast--faster than expected for a "mature" rainforest--according to
a network of measurements.
The exact cause or causes of this accelerated growth--which means the Amazon's 5 million
square kilometers of trees are now sucking in and sequestering some 400 million metric tons of
carbon per year, or enough to offset the annual greenhouse gas emissions of Japan--"remains
unknown," the researchers wrote in the review.
Read more...
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