Deforestation explains why it rains a lot less in the Amazon

by Andrea
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Deforestation explains why it rains a lot less in the Amazon

The Amazon Forest is the largest on the planet and plays a key role in the global climate system

Local deforestation is the main cause of rainfall reduction in the Amazon region during the dry season, which decreased by almost 8% since 1985, according to an investigation.

Researchers from Brazil and the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, Germany, quantified, with this conclusion, the different impacts of local deforestation and global climate change in the Amazon region, in a study published in Nature Communications, the Europa Press agency reported.

The Amazon Forest is the largest on the planet and plays a key role in the global climate system.

However, in recent decades, significant changes in water, carbon and energy cycles have been observed in the Amazon region, influencing, for example, precipitation levels.

Previous studies have failed to differentiate the contribution of the two main factors, the increase in global temperature caused by greenhouse gas emissions and the increase in local deforestation.

Luiz Machado, a climate researcher at the University of São Paulo and author of the new study, stressed in the journal Nature Climate Change that “deforestation explains almost 75% of precipitation reduction (in the dry season)”.

“Therefore, even minor changes in precipitation during the dry season can have a disproportionate impact on vegetation health,” he said.

In the dry season, there are only 26% of the average precipitation, totaling 281 millimeters, compared to 1,097 millimeters during the rain station.

According to researchers, deforestation also explains approximately 16% of the increase of 2 degrees Celsius at temperature.

However, a much higher proportion, approximately 84% of temperature increase, is attributable to global climate change.

The study also indicated that the climate of Amazonia does not respond linearly to deforestation, as the most severe climate change occur in the early stages of the process, especially when it is lost between 10% and 40% of the forest.

“It is important to wage deforestation to preserve the climate resilience of the Amazon region,” added Luiz Machado, who also works as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry in Mainz.

In their study, the researchers analyzed data from 29 regions of the Brazilian Amazon, collected in the last 35 years (1985 to 2020) through atmospheric and satellite measurements.

Using long -term data and specialized statistical techniques (parameterization), they successfully distinguished the impacts of deforestation from global climate change.

The Brazilian and German team concluded that more than 99% of the increase in greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon dioxide, is due to global climate change.

However, deforestation is responsible for a small portion of 0.3%CO2 increase.

The study also analyzes the future climate of the Amazon region in 2035 and Christopher Pöhlker of the Max Planck Institute of Chemistry, warned that “if deforestation continues to the current pace, the data indicates that an additional increase in approximately 0.6 ° C can occur and a significant reduction in precipitation of about seven millimeters during the dry season, compared to the current.”

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