Major change that could turn Amazon rainforest into dried-out savannah | #yahoonewsau

Subscribe and turn on notifications🔔 : https://buff.ly/3F6ZiLt | Temperature changes predicted over the next four years could be enough to start transforming the world-famous Amazon rainforest into a dried-out savannah.

Since the world industrialised, it has already warmed by close to 1.5 degrees.

The trigger point for the Amazon rainforest to start drying out would ordinarily be an increase of 3.7 to 4 degrees, and that isn’t expected for over 70 years. However, new research identified a spanner in the works, which could bring forward the timeline of its demise.

Lead author and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) scientist Nico Wunderling, explained that the Amazon is “far less resilient than we previously anticipated” to deforestation. And this increases its vulnerability to climate change.

Between 17 and 18% of the wilderness has already been destroyed, and if that number grows to 22 to 28%, it could spark disaster. That’s because this amount of deforestation, combined with warming of just 1.5 to 1.9 degrees, could change the rainforest to a savannah.

Co-author of the paper, Utrecht University Assistant Professor Arie Staal, explained, “Global warming and deforestation affect rainfall feedbacks across the Amazon system. When deforestation interrupts moisture transport in one area of the Amazon, entire regions hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away can also lose resilience through cascading drought effects.”

At 670 million hectares, the Amazon is estimated to host between 390 and 400 billion individual trees, enough to generate rain. But when they’re cut down, the forest’s ability to recycle water into itself is diminished.

Researchers say this creates problems not just across the Amazon, but the entire planet, and believe that protecting and restoring trees could help delay the impacts of climate change.

Read more: https://au.news.yahoo.com/predicted-weather-change-could-turn-famous-rainforest-into-dry-scrub-060106184.html

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