Analysis of data relating to the Amazonian vegetation cover, collected over the last three decades, has highlighted a significant loss of resilience since the beginning of the millennium.
A general loss of resilience
Often referred to as ” lung of the planet “, I’Amazon doesn’t actually provide 20% of the Earth’s oxygen, but it’s still a crucial ecosystem. Its vast reserves of atmospheric humidity protect a large part of theLatin America devastating effects of drought, and the mega-forest also regulates the climate by storing large amounts of carbon dioxide in its vegetation and soils.
However, work published last year revealed that it now emits more than CO2 than it stored, mainly due to deliberate fires set to clear land for soybean and beef production.
For this new study published in the journal Nature Climate Changean international team of researchers used different types of data (satellite and remote sensing) to track the evolution of the Amazon rainforest (biomass and canopy greenness) since the early 2000s. of its area showed a significant loss of resilience, i.e. its ability to recover from a major disturbance, such as a drought.
According to the researchers, this critical slowdown in the dynamics of the ecosystem brings it inexorably closer to a tipping point, involving in this case its transition from tropical rainforest to grassy savannah.
Obvious culprits
“ Deforestation and climate change are likely the main drivers of this decline “, Explain Niklas Boerresearcher attechnical university of munich and co-author of the study. ” Resilience loss is faster in parts of the rainforest that are closer to human activities as well as in parts with lower rainfall. »
Although different research has previously theorized the tipping of the Amazonian ecosystem, this new study provides essential empirical evidence that we are approaching this threshold.
” If too much resilience is lost, dieback may become unavoidable, but this will only be evident once the event that will tip the system has passed. », concludes Boers.
[related_posts_by_tax taxonomies=”post_tag”]
The post The Amazon rainforest on the verge of definitive transformation into savannah appeared first on Gamingsym.
