|
About | Contact | Mongabay on Facebook | Mongabay on Twitter | Free newsletter |
|
|
Amazon confusion: new research shows forest is resilient to drought, but is this the whole picture? Jeremy Hance mongabay.com March 15, 2010 "We found no big differences in the greenness level of these forests between drought and non-drought years, which suggests that these forests may be more tolerant of droughts than we previously thought," said Arindam Samanta, the study's lead author from Boston University. Employing NASA MODIS satellite data the study measured the greennesss of the Amazon over the last decade, including 2005 when the rainforest experienced drought conditions that only occur every hundred years or so.
The study shows results quite different from the 2007 IPCC report which stated that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest was threatened by climate change. While the IPCC has received some criticism for the statement, which cites a WWF study, prominent tropical ecologists have stated that the IPCC was largely correct in its assessment given information at the time. Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair at the Washington DC-based Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, and chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank, recently told Tierramerica that the Amazon rainforest was "very close to a tipping point". Citing a World Bank report that looks at the synergistic effects of deforestation, climate change, and fires, Lovejoy said that the "tipping point for the Amazon is 20 percent deforestation". Currently 17-18 percent of the Amazon has been lost. The strength of this study is that it didn't focus on a single threat, but looked at the combination of impacts currently barraging the ecosystem. Another tropical forest expert, Simon Lewis of Leeds University, told the BBC earlier this year that "it is very well known that in Amazonia, tropical forests exist when there is more than about 1.5 meters of rain a year, below that the system tends to 'flip' to savannah." He added: "indeed, some leading models of future climate change impacts show a die-off of more than 40 percent Amazon forests, due to projected decreases in rainfall." Dr. Jose Marengo, a Brazilian National Institute for Space Research climate scientist and member of the IPCC, disagreed, saying that, "the way that the WWF report calculated this 40 percent was totally wrong, while [the new] calculations are by far more reliable and correct."
Given the differing opinions, more research may be needed before consensus can be reached on how the Amazon will react to climate change, especially in light of other threats such as deforestation. Citation: Samanta, A., S. Ganguly, H. Hashimoto, S. Devadiga, E. Vermote, Y. Knyazikhin, R. R. Nemani, and R. B. Myneni (2010), Amazon forests did not green‐up during the 2005 drought, Geophys. Res. Lett., 37, L05401, doi:10.1029/2009GL042154. Related articles The Amazongate fiasco 
(02/03/2010) A claim published in the Sunday Times over the veracity of a statement published in an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report may land the British newspaper in hot water. On Sunday, Jonathan Leake, Science & Environment Editor of the Sunday Times, accused the IPCC of making a "bogus rainforest claim" when it cited a report warning that up to 40 percent of the Amazon could be "drastically" affected by climate change. Climate change skeptics immediately seized on "Amazongate" as further evidence to discredit the IPCC just two weeks after it was found to be using shoddy glacier data in its 2007 climate assessment.
Rainforest expert agrees with IPCC: warns of 'tipping point' for Amazon 
(02/03/2010) Amid questions over the Amazon forests' capacity to survive climate change, a renowned tropical biologist says that in fact the fears are real, reports Tierramerica. Speaking at the Biodiversity Science Policy Conference in Paris, Thomas Lovejoy, biodiversity chair at the Washington DC-based Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, and chief biodiversity adviser to the president of the World Bank, described the Amazon rainforest as "very close to a tipping point".
Will tropical trees survive climate change?, an interview with Kenneth J. Feeley 
(09/24/2009) One of the most pressing issues in the conservation today is how climate change will affect tropical ecosystems. The short answer is: we don't know. Because of this, more and more scientists are looking at the probable impacts of a warmer world on the Earth's most vibrant and biodiverse ecosystems. Kenneth J. Feeley, tropical ecologist and new professor at Florida International University and the Center for Tropical Plant Conservation at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, is conducting groundbreaking research in the tropical forests of Peru on the migration of tree species due to climate change.
Tags: amazon Amazon Deforestation amazon destruction rainforests Rainforest deforestation jeremy hance green environment climate change impact of climate change Amazon rainforest carbon sequestration carbon emissions brazil climate change politics climate science deforestation ecological services ecology ecosystem services environmental politics environmental services rainforest rainforest destruction forest fires forests saving the amazon saving rainforests threats to rainforests threats to the rainforest threats to the amazon tropical forests awayten Environmental news index | RSS | News Feed | Twitter | Home Advertisements:
|
|
|
DON'T LIKE ADS? Become a mongabay supporter WEEKLY NEWSLETTER RECENT FEATURES
POPULAR PAGES Photos
CALENDARS 
BOOKS BY MONGABAY AUTHORS
FREE WEEKLY NEWSLETTER 
HIGH RESOLUTION PHOTOS / PRINTS 
|
| | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Copyright mongabay 2010 Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions generated from mongabay.com operations (server, data transfer, travel) are mitigated through an association with Anthrotect, an organization working with Afro-indigenous and Embera communities to protect forests in Colombia's Darien region. Anthrotect is protecting the habitat of mongabay's mascot: the scale-crested pygmy tyrant. |
