Amazon is tipping
Nov. 1st, 2014 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljgeoffNo one has expected this. The Amazon Has Started to Malfunction, Brazilian Scientist Says
From the article:
"Because no current climate model incorporates any mechanisms or effects predicted by the biotic water pump theory, especially the potential effects of changes in wind circulation, its projections may be uncertain", Neves wrote in his report.
The scientist found another factor that had been underestimated in some mathematical models that try to reproduce the interaction between the rainforest and the climate: the degradation of areas of vegetation that have already lost good part of its trees and biodiversity, but that appear in satellite images as intact rainforest.
This means that 40% of the rainforest is disadvantaged at different levels, a similar percentage estimated in research that predicts the exact point at which the rainforest would not be able to support itself on its own, unable to guarantee its own humidity.
"We are reaching a 'tipping point', where the system is increasingly unable to compensate any further", he says.
From the article:
"Because no current climate model incorporates any mechanisms or effects predicted by the biotic water pump theory, especially the potential effects of changes in wind circulation, its projections may be uncertain", Neves wrote in his report.
The scientist found another factor that had been underestimated in some mathematical models that try to reproduce the interaction between the rainforest and the climate: the degradation of areas of vegetation that have already lost good part of its trees and biodiversity, but that appear in satellite images as intact rainforest.
This means that 40% of the rainforest is disadvantaged at different levels, a similar percentage estimated in research that predicts the exact point at which the rainforest would not be able to support itself on its own, unable to guarantee its own humidity.
"We are reaching a 'tipping point', where the system is increasingly unable to compensate any further", he says.