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Amazon Nears 'Tipping Point' Where Rainforest Could Transform Into Savanna 70

Posted by BeauHD from the it's-not-too-late-to-be-saved-though dept.
If deforestation continues, the Amazon rainforest could reach a critical tipping point where most of it transforms into a dry savanna, a new study warns. Live Science reports: The study, published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change, suggests that more than 75% of the rainforest has steadily lost "resilience" since the 2000s, meaning those portions of the rainforest now can't recover as easily from disturbances, such as droughts and wildfires. Regions of the rainforest that show the most profound losses in resilience are located near farms, urban areas and areas used for logging, Inside Climate News reported. Climate change, rampant deforestation and burnings conducted for agriculture and ranching have left the Amazon far warmer and drier than in decades past, and since 2000, the region has endured three major droughts, The New York Times reported.

By examining satellite images taken between 1991 and 2016, the researchers determined how long the rainforest took to bounce back after such events, The Guardian reported. The researchers determined that, since the turn of the 21st century, the rainforest has been taking longer and longer to recover biomass, meaning the mass of living trees and other vegetation, after droughts and fires. "That lack of resilience shows that, indeed, there is only so much of a beating that this forest can take," Paulo Brando, a tropical ecologist at the University of California, Irvine who was not involved in the study, told The New York Times. If the rainforests surpasses this tipping point, the ecosystem could swiftly change into a vast savanna, unleashing tens of billions of tons of carbon dioxide during the transformation, The Guardian reported.

At this point, can anything be done to prevent the Amazon rainforest from turning into the Amazon savanna? Experts say there is. "These systems are highly resilient, and the fact that we have reduced resilience doesn't mean that it has lost all its resilience," Brando told the Times. "If you leave them alone for a little bit, they come back super strongly." But it requires key steps to be taken, experts said. "We have to get to zero deforestation, zero forest degradation," Carlos Nobre, a senior scientist at the National Institute of Amazonian Research in Brazil, who was not involved in the study, told the Times. "We still have a chance to save the forest."
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Amazon Nears 'Tipping Point' Where Rainforest Could Transform Into Savanna More

Amazon Nears 'Tipping Point' Where Rainforest Could Transform Into Savanna

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  • I absolutely hate that my initial impression of this article was one of some plight the bookseller had encountered.

  • Amazon on Slashdot usually refers to Jeff Bezos's retail and streaming empire...

  • and turn it into Jeff Bezos personal nature preserve.

  • Now the interesting thing about that

    And despite all the damage and imminent threats to the environment during Bolsonaro’s administration, the climate crisis is not a decisive factor in this election. Analysts suggest the result of the polls reflects Bolsonaro’s catastrophic handling of the pandemic. The president has consistently downplayed the risks of the virus, adopted fervent anti-vaccine rhetoric and promoted unproven remedies, such as hydroxychloroquine.

    https://www.thebureauinvestiga... [thebureaui...igates.com]

    • that Ukrainians "placed the hope of their nation in the hands of a comedian."

      Is it worse than putting it in the hands of a politician?

  • There are 'old growth' forrests in Columbia that were grasslands 400 years ago, so while he's right correctthem becoming savannah, he's not correct about them staying that way.

  • Sure, if the planet gives up its unsustainable desire for beef, mostly in the form of hamburgers.

    I'm not saying fast food is entirely responsible for this, but it does seem reasonably evident that around 60,000 outlets from the world's two biggest fast food companies isn't going to do much to help.

    On a social level, going purely on anecdotal evidence - because that's all I really have to use - eating beef every day has become completely normalised.
    It's been that way for ages. I've lost count of the amount o

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by elainerd ( 94528 )

      I'm just going to live in a concrete paved city, surrounded by my tech and my 'intellectual' friends. I will naturally exclude my bizarre existence from 'The Environment'. I will eat the most processed foods available. I will drink the most processed beverages that exist. I will point out to those smelly flyover people in the Midwest what the 'best' farming methods are and what I think they should be doing. I will tell them how they are in various animal's 'territory'. I won't ever recognize that NYC, Bosto

  • All this talk of how we can power the world with wind, sun, water, and ethanol made from sugarcane is coming crashing down. You want to see destruction of the Amazon forest? Sugarcane ethanol is how you get destruction of the Amazon forest.

    Electric cars won't save the forest because that electricity has to come from somewhere. Offshore windmills maybe? Sure, that only costs more than nuclear power. That also has environmental impacts.

    Shipping in energy from some other nation is how we got Russia invadi

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

      Electric cars won't save the forest because that electricity has to come from somewhere.

      So even if the electricity was generated by nuclear, it wouldn't help.

      Offshore windmills maybe? Sure, that only costs more than nuclear power.

      You keep asking for people to provide you with updated information on this so you can use it. We have. You don't.

      https://www.carbonbrief.org/new-nuclear-power-in-uk-would-be-the-worlds-most-costly-says-report

      Slightly old - UK cost for nuclear £90/MWh.

      Same time period, offshore wind: https://www.energy-uk.org.uk/p... [energy-uk.org.uk]

      £97/MWh. So already almost a tie.

      https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-09-02/wind-and-solar-are-30-5

      • A report from 2015 is not "updated".

        I ask for new information when I've given reports from 2020
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Well the Lazard numbers are interesting but I've been told to ignore Lazard, perhaps because they give natural gas such good numbers.

        Offshore wind, costs more than nuclear power.
        Rooftop solar, costs more than nuclear power.
        Utility scale solar, that takes cutting down trees.
        onshore wind, Excellent.
        geothermal, excellent.
        nuclear fission , excellent.
        Hydro, excellent.

        Yes, I want update

        • I posted 2015/6 information in the first links as that is where the crossover occurred. I also posted 2020 data. I can post more if you like. The problem people have with you using Lazard is you claim one thing and provide a link in which Lazard says something else. Anyway, show me where for new installation (since this is what we are discussing) where LCOE for nuclear is lower than off shore wind. Remember not to use LCOE related to old installations.

  • Illegal slash-and-burn farming, illegal logging - Brazil makes a show of combatting this stuff, but actually tolerates it. A little grease on the right palm, leave a piece of broken equipment behind, so they can film the enforcers destroying it, and everything is good. It doesn't look like this is going to change anytime soon. So, savanna.

    The loss of biodiversity will be sad, when it happens. However, for the planet as a whole, it's probably a shrug. Rain forests are not big carbon sinks. Rainfall pattern

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jandoe ( 6400032 )

      Yep, we should just start preparing for this as it's impossible to avoid. And by preparing I mean just build a wall around Brazil so that when it's all dried up they stay there instead of fleeing to other countries. Unlike Ukraine they brought this on themselves so they should deal with it by themselves.

      • I'm not sure this was supposed to be a joke or plain stupidity. Historically, a lot of people fled to Brazil during the Second World War, so I'm not sure how this idea of "fleeing to other countries" came up. Neither this "dried up" idea. Brazil has the largest amount of fresh water in the whole world. Studying world History and Geography is not a bad thing, you know...
    • Nope, not a "great job Brazil". That's how humankind works. All the media and people from other countries that use that kind of statement conveniently forget that they fucked up their own environment as well, for a lot of different reasons, but due the same root cause: greed. Brazil is not an exception by any means. But people like to point fingers.

  • Who was that couple, guy passed away in old age I think now, that had some clothing company and bought a huge amount of land in Chile... then donated it to the local government with stipulations of protecting it and leaving it a national forest or something.

    We need more of that!

    These guys I think: https://www.cnn.com/travel/art... [cnn.com]

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