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What are the long-term effects of climate change?

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Scientists have predicted that long-term effects of climate change will include a decrease in sea ice and an increase in permafrost thawing, an increase in heat waves and heavy precipitation, and decreased water resources in semi-arid regions.

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Provides information about the impacts of climate change on the amazon

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Provides information about the impacts of climate change on the amazon

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Global warming is turning up the temperature beyond acceptable levels. Species capable of moving fast enough will likely attempt to find a more suitable environment; however, many other species will either be unable to move or will have nowhere to go.

Higher temperatures are impacting temperature-dependent species like fish, causing their distribution to change. Some terrestrial species have already invaded higher altitude habitats, but it is expected that many will simply disappear from their current habitats.

Increased temperatures and reduced rainfall in some areas may also reduce suitable habitat during dry, warm months and potentially lead to an increase in invasive, exotic species, which then can out-compete native species.

Climate change and freshwater ecosystems

Less rainfall during the dry months could seriously affect many Amazon rivers and other freshwater systems, and the people that rely on these resources.

One possible disastrous impact of reduced rainfall is a change in nutrient input into streams and rivers, which can greatly affect aquatic organisms.

A more variable climate and more extreme events will also likely mean that Amazon fish populations will more often experience hot temperatures and potentially lethal environmental conditions.

What the experts say
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggests that flooding associated with sea-level rise will have substantial impacts on lowland areas such as the Amazon River delta. In fact, the rate of sea-level rise over the last 100 years has been 1.0-2.5 mm per year, and this rate could rise to 5 mm per year.

Sea-level rise, increased temperature, changes in rainfall and runoff will likely cause major changes in species habitats such as mangrove ecosystems.

These factors may also affect the region's fisheries that depend on mangrove habitat as nurseries and refuge.

Fishermen in the Tocantins River of the Amazon have chosen capture strategies that are specific to seasonal variations in fish behavior and reproduction.

Climatic changes could cause these species to decline in numbers or become extinct, while changes in seasonal fluctuations may change the migratory pattern and ecology of fish species and lead to changes in fish catches.

The impacts of climate change are not limited to natural ecosystems. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), projected warmer temperatures and changes in precipitation will undoubtedly impact the agricultural sector (including plantation forestry) in the Amazon.

Particularly hard-hit will be subsidence farming. This is particularly dramatic, as agriculture is the basis of subsistence lifestyles. Agriculture is also the largest user of human capital for rural communities within the Amazon.

Expected climate change impacts:

A reduction in rainfall during critical dry months may also lead to increased evapotranspiration and pest and disease infestation, which will likely negatively affect agricultural yields.

Larger areas of plantations (at a higher cost) will likely be needed to meet current levels of demand in a warmer world. Scientists estimate that the required plantation area in the Amazon would need to increase as much as 38% to meet demands.

Subsistence farming in the Amazon is particularly threatened by warming and drying during critical seasons. In northeastern Brazil, people have been suffering from decreased agricultural yields that are among the most severe in the world.

More than 51 million people live in this region, which is prone to periodic droughts and famines. Slight climate changes in this region will likely have major consequences for human populations.

Climate change and human health

As the impacts of climate change leave their mark across the Amazon region, human populations will not go unaffected.

In addition to the already established relationship between extreme temperatures and increased death rates, it is likely that the Amazonian region will experience an increase in the occurrence of intense weather events with further impacts on humans.

Climate change and extreme weather events, such as floods, may lead to increased outbreaks of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue, and increased outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera and meningitis.

Climate change induced droughts will increase the risk of wildfires with direct impacts on human health from loss of property and smoke inhalation.

Increased temperature may also lead to an increase in the distribution and growth of allergenic plants in the region.

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Next [Our Solutions for the Amazon] >>

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Global warming is turning up the temperature beyond acceptable levels. Species capable of moving fast enough will likely attempt to find a more suitable environment; however, many other species will either be unable to move or will have nowhere to go. Higher temperatures are impacting temperature-dependent species like fish, causing their distribution to change.

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Talks about the human impacts on the Amazon Rainforest

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The human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers from Brazil and the UK, led by Lancaster University.

They found that selective logging and surface wildfires can result in an annual loss of 54 billion tonnes of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon, increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

This is equivalent to 40% of the yearly carbon loss from deforestation -- when entire forests are chopped down.

This is the largest ever study estimating above and below-ground carbon loss from selective logging and ground level forest fires in the tropics, based on data from 70,000 sampled trees and thousands of soil, litter and dead wood samples from 225 sites in the eastern Brazilian Amazon.

The forest degradation often starts with logging of prized trees such as mahogany and ipe. The felling and removal of these large trees often damages dozens of neighbouring trees.

Once the forest has been logged, the many gaps in the canopy means it becomes much drier due to exposure to the wind and sun, increasing the risk of wildfires spreading inside the forest.

The combination of selective logging and wildfires damages turns primary forests into a thick scrub full of smaller trees and vines, which stores 40% less carbon than undisturbed forests.

So far, climate change policies on the tropics have effectively been focusing on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation only, not accounting for emissions coming from forest degradation.

Lead researcher Dr Erika Berenguer from Lancaster University said: "The impacts of fire and logging in tropical forests have always been largely overlooked by both the scientific community and policy makers who are primarily concerned with deforestation. Yet our results show how these disturbances can severely degrade the forest, with huge amounts of carbon being transferred from plant matter straight into the atmosphere."

The research to be published in Global Change Biology on June 3 was carried out by 10 researchers from 11 universities and research institutions in Brazil and the UK.

The second author, Dr Joice Ferreira from Embrapa in Brazil, said: "Our findings also draw attention to the necessity for Brazil to implement more effective policies for reducing the use of fire in agriculture, as fires can both devastate private property, and escape into surrounding forests causing widespread degradation. Bringing fire and illegal logging under control is key to reaching our national commitment to reducing carbon emissions."

Journal Reference:

Rika Berenguer, Joice Ferreira, Toby Alan Gardner, Luiz Eduardo Oliveira Cruz Aragão, Plínio Barbosa de Camargo, Carlos Eduardo Cerri, Mariana Durigan, Raimundo Cosme de Oliveira Junior, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Jos Barlow. A Large-Scale Field Assessment of Carbon Stocks in Human-Modified Tropical Forests. Global Change Biology, 2014 (in press) DOI: 10.1111/gcb.12627

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trees; nature; ecology research; forest; rainforests; wildfires; land management; environmental policies; urbanization

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Devastating human impact on the Amazon rainforest revealed

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The human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers. They found that selective logging and surface wildfires can result in an annual loss of 54 billion tons of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon, increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

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this is really helpful for stats

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Since 1978 about one million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana. Why is Earth's largest rainforest being destroyed?

For most of human history, deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption. But in the later part of the 20th century, that began to change, with an increasing proportion of deforestation driven by industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. By the 2000s more than three-quarters of forest clearing in the Amazon was for cattle-ranching.

The result of this shift is forests in the Amazon were cleared faster than ever before in the late 1970s through the mid 2000s. Vast areas of rainforest were felled for cattle pasture and soy farms, drowned for dams, dug up for minerals, and bulldozed for towns and colonization projects. At the same time, the proliferation of roads opened previously inaccessible forests to settlement by poor farmers, illegal logging, and land speculators.

But that trend began to reverse in Brazil in 2004. Between then and the early 2010s, annual forest loss in the country that contains nearly two-thirds of the Amazon's forest cover declined by roughly eighty percent. The drop was fueled by a number of factors, including increased law enforcement, satellite monitoring, pressure from environmentalists, private and public sector initiatives, new protected areas, and macroeconomic trends. Nonetheless the trend in Brazil is not mirrored in other Amazon countries, some of which have experienced rising deforestation since 2000.

However Brazil's success in curbing deforestation has stalled since 2012 and forest loss has been trending upward since. There is debate over why this is the case, but some researchers argue that Brazil achieved about as much as it could through law enforcement and other punitive measures. Reducing deforestation further requires sufficient economic incentives to maintain forest cover in the Amazon. Put another way, standing forest needs to be made more valuable than clearing it for pasture, crops, or land speculation.

By that line of reasoning, the political impetus for reducing deforestation began to wane as ranchers, farmers, investors, and land speculators grew tried of fines, threats of legal action, and prohibitions against clearing. Political movements like the ruralistas pushed harder for relation of environmental laws and amnesty for past transgressions. These interests gained momentum when the Temer administration came to power in 2016 and won more clout with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in late 2018. Bolsonaro, who campaigned on the promise to open the Amazon to extractive industries and agribusiness while disparaging environmentalists and indigenous peoples, immediately set about dismantling protections for the Amazon when he took office in January 2019. Deforestation increased sharply thereafter, reaching levels not seen since the mid-2000s. Mongabay-News is tracking the latest deforestation news in the Amazon at its Amazon deforestation news feed.

Forest loss trends between Amazon countries are highly variable. The following charts are based data from Matt Hansen and colleagues, as presented in Global Forest Watch, using a "loose" definition of the Amazon that extends beyond the Amazon river basin. This includes the Guianas, all of Amazonas state in Venezuela, and all of the states of Maranhão and Mato Grosso in Brazil. "Forest" is defined as areas having more than 30% tree cover.

Please note: Amazon deforestation data is updated monthly here.

Brazil

Brazil [ news] holds about one-third of the world's remaining rainforests, including more than 60 percent of the Amazon rainforest. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon declined sharply in the mid-2000s due to government interventions, macroeconomic factors, and efforts by civil society. However in recent years, that decline has stalled, with deforestation beginning to rise again.

The history of dramatic decline in the Brazilian Amazon's deforestation rate is detailed in our environmental profile on the country. For updates on deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, check our Brazil deforestation news feed.

Peru

Peru's [ news] rate of forest loss has been trending upward over the past decade. Reasons for the rise include the development and completion of the Transoceanic highway, which connects Pacific ports to the heart of the Amazon; a surge in gold mining in Madre de Dios and other regions along the eastern slope of the Andes; and increased logging and hydrocarbon extraction.

Colombia

The rate of forest loss in the Colombian Amazon [ news] has been roughly flat since 2000.

Bolivia

Bolivia's [ news] deforestation spiked in 2008 and again in 2010. Overall the country's rate of loss has been increasing at the second highest rate in the Amazon.

Ecuador

Ecuador's [ news] rate of forest loss in the Amazon increased between 2001 and 2012. One of the top concern for environmentalists is the government's decision to open Yasuni National Park for oil drilling.

Venezuela

Only a part of Amazonas state in Venezuela [ news] is considered part of the Amazon rainforest, but for the purpose of this estimate, the entire state is used. Most of Venezuela's rainforest found in areas that are part of the Orinoco river basin. Forest loss in the Venezuelan Amazon has been mostly flat since 2000.

The Guianas

While Suriname [ news], Guyana [ news], and French Guiana [ news] aren't part of the Amazon River basin, their forests are often lumped in as part of the Amazon rainforest. Forest loss in the three countries has sharply increased in recent years.

Several trends are contributing to industrial conversion in the Amazon rainforest:

Increased government incentives in the form of loans and infrastructure spending, including roads and dams;

Scaled-up private sector finance due to growing interest in "emerging markets" and rising domestic wealth;

Surging demand for commodities like beef, soy, sugar, and palm oil

Cattle ranching

Cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. In Brazil, this has been the case since at least the 1970s: government figures attributed 38 percent of deforestation from 1966-1975 to large-scale cattle ranching. Today the figure in Brazil is closer to 70 percent. Most of the beef is destined for urban markets, whereas leather and other cattle products are primarily for export markets.

But production of beef, leather and other cattle products isn't the only reason for converting rainforest into artificial grasslands. In a region where land prices are appreciating quickly, cattle ranching is used as a vehicle for land speculation, much of which is illegal. Forestland has little value-but cleared pastureland can be used to produce cattle or sold to large-scale farmers, including soy planters.

In the mid- to late-2000s, the situation in the Brazilian Amazon began to change. In 2006, major soy crushers established the Amazon Soy Moratorium, which barred the purchase of soy produced on lands deforested in the Amazon biome after July 24, 2006. This historic agreement, which came in response to a Greenpeace campaign, became the basis for zero deforestation commitments established subsequently in other sections, including cattle production. In 2009, major cattle buyers and the Brazilian government established the "Cattle Agreement" which was intended to bar cattle from illegally deforested areas from supply chains as well as prohibit the use of slave labor on ranches. As part of the push to improve the sustainability of cattle, state-run banks began mandating landowners register their properties for environmental compliance in order to gain access to low-interest loans.

Cattle agreements did not emerge in Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia, where cattle ranching remains a major driver of Amazon forest loss. And by the early 2010s, it became clear that major slaughterhouses in Brazil were evading the safeguards put in place under the agreement by laundering cattle through other ranches. Such activity rendered the cattle agreement far less effective than originally envisioned. As of 2020, cattle ranching remains the dominant cause of deforestation in the Amazon.

Colonization and subsequent subsistence agriculture

Historically, subsistence agriculture has been an important cause of deforestation in the Amazon. Small-scale agriculture has often been facilitated by government colonization programs aiming to alleviate urban population pressure by redistributing or granting rural land to the poor. In some cases these programs have failed to meet their development goals while simultaneously unleashing large-scale deforestation.

For example, in the 1970s, Brazil's military dictatorship expanded its ambitious colonization program centered around the construction of the 2,000-mile Trans-Amazonian Highway, which would bisect the Amazon, opening rainforest lands to (1) settlement by poor farmers from the crowded, drought-plagued north and (2) enabling the exploitation of timber and mineral resources. Under the program, colonists would be granted a 250-acre lot, six-months' salary, and easy access to agricultural loans in exchange for settling along the highway and converting the surrounding rainforest into agricultural land. The plan would grow to cost Brazil US$65,000 (1980 dollars) to settle each family.

The project was plagued from the start. The sediments of the Amazon Basin rendered the highway unstable and subject to inundation during heavy rains, blocking traffic and leaving crops to rot. Harvest yields for poor farmers were dismal due to poor training and inadequate soils, which were quickly exhausted necessitating more forest clearing.. Logging was difficult due to the low density of commercially exploitable trees. Rampant erosion, up to 40 tons of soil per acre (100 tons/ha) occurred after clearing. Many colonists, unfamiliar with banking and lured by easy credit, went deep into debt.

Adding to the debacle was the environmental cost of the project. After the construction of the Trans-Amazonian Highway, Brazilian deforestation accelerated to levels never before seen.

While state-sponsored colonization schemes have waned in the 21st century, they haven't disappeared. The Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (INCRA) continues to resettle colonists in the Amazon. Additionally, actors in the private sector are known to encourage colonization for the explicit purpose of land-grabbing and deforestation. Speculators may sponsor migrants from Brazilian cities to settle forested areas in the Amazon, sometimes enroaching on farmers' legal forest reserves, indigenous reserves, and national parks and other state lands. Once the squatters - known locally as grileiros - have occupied the land long enough to clear it or secure assert a claim, however tenous, they turn it over their benefactor who sponsored the venture. The grileiros may then be deployed to another tract of forest.

Commercial agriculture

After the commercialization of a new variety of soybean developed by Brazilian scientists to flourish in rainforest climate, soy emerged as one of the most important contributors to deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon from the 1990s through the mid-2000s.

Soy was both a direct and indirect deforestation. While forest was converted directly for soy fields, the crop's impact on rainforests was much larger, providing an impetus for new highways, driving up land prices and thereby encouraging land speculation, and encouraging ranchers and small farmers to move deeper into rainforest areas.

But the situation in Brazil has changed significantly since 2006, when a high profile campaign by Greenpeace forced Brazil's largest soy producers to commit to avoiding deforestation for new production. However deforestation for soy is still widespread in Bolivia and Paraguay.

Meanwhile other forms of commercial agriculture, including rice, corn, and sugar cane, also contribute to deforestation in the Amazon, both directly through forest conversion and indirectly by driving up land values.

Logging

In theory, logging in the Amazon is controlled by strict licensing which allows timber to be harvested only in designated areas, but in practice, illegal logging remains widespread in Brazil and Peru.

Logging in the Amazon is closely linked with road building. Studies by the Environmental Defense Fund show that areas that have been selectively logged are eight times more likely to be settled and cleared by shifting cultivators than untouched rainforests because of access granted by logging roads. Logging roads give colonists access to remote rainforest areas.

Other causes of forest loss in the Amazon

Historically, hydroelectric projects have flooded vast areas of Amazon rainforest. The Balbina dam flooded some 2,400 square kilometers (920 square miles) of rainforest when it was completed. Today dams drive deforestation by powering industrial mining and farming projects. Hundreds of dams are planned in the Amazon basin over the next 20 years.

Mining has had a substantial impact in the Amazon. High mineral and precious metal prices has spurred unprecedented invasions of rainforest lands across Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, and Peru. A 2013 study found that the area torn up for small-scale gold mining increased 400 percent in 13 years The surge in the gold price during the COVID-19 pandemic reinvigorated interested in mining, triggering more encroachment by illegal goldminers ̵ called garimpeiros in Brazil as well as increased investment from commercial and industrial operators.

Oil and gas development is fueling environmental concerns in the Western Amazon. Large blocks of rainforest have been granted for exploration and exploitation licenses in recent years. Oil and gas development is generally not a major direct driver of deforestation - most of the impact comes from the construction of supporting infrastructure like roads and pipelines. But pollution from oil spills, flaring, and intentional dumping of chemical waste drive other environmental problems.
This section is excerpted for an story published on Mongabay News: What's the current deforestation rate in the Amazon rainforest?
Nearly two-thirds of the Amazon rainforest is located in Brazil, making it the biggest component in the region's deforestation rate. Helpfully, Brazil also has the best systems for tracking deforestation, with the government and Imazon, a national civil society organization, releasing updates on a quarterly and monthly basis using MODIS satellite data, respectively. Both the Brazilian government and Imazon release more accurate data on an annual basis using higher resolution Landsat satellite imagery.

For other Amazon countries - primarily Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia since Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and French Guiana are mostly outside the true Amazon basin watershed - the most reliable source for regular updates is Global Forest Watch, a platform that aggregates data from a many different sources. Currently Global Forest Watch has FORMA, a near-real-time forest cover monitoring system that also uses MODIS, and annual estimate made by a group of researchers led by a team at the University of Maryland.
Variance in monthly deforestation
Month-to-month deforestation is highly variable leading to frequent misreporting in the media. Both MODIS and Landsat cannot penetrate cloud cover, so during the rainy season - from roughly November to April - estimates are notoriously unreliable when compared to the same month a year earlier. Furthermore, most forest clearing in the Amazon occurs when it is dry. So if the dry season is early, deforestation may increase earlier than normal. For these reasons, the most accurate deforestation comparisons are made year-on-year. For Brazil, the deforestation "year" ends July 31: the peak of the dry season when the largest extent of forest is typically visible via satellite.

Nonetheless, short-term MODIS data isn't useless - it can provide insights on trends, especially over longer periods of time. Generally, comparing 12 consecutive months of MODIS data will provide a pretty good indication of deforestation relative to other years. Therefore the charts below include a history of MODIS-based data as well as the longer-term Landsat-based data. The MODIS system used by Brazil's National Institute for Space Research (INPE) is called DETER, while Imazon's system is called SAD. INPE's annual Landsat-based system is called PRODES.
Current monthly deforestation data for the Brazilian Amazon
INPE and DETER are used primary for law enforcement since detection occurs on roughly a biweekly basis, enabling environmental police to take action as large-scale forest clearing occurs. As of 2021, INPE releases SAD data every Friday, covering deforestation registered up to about 10 days prior.

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Since 1978 about one million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana. Why is Earth's largest rainforest being destroyed? For most of human history, deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption.

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This is crazy ! The Amazon Raynforest is shrinking by 85%

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This is crazy ! The Amazon Raynforest is shrinking by 85%

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Over the next 265 years the amazon is set to shrink by 85%

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Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

The research, by some of Britain's leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle, the destruction of which has become a powerful symbol of human impact on the planet. Up to 85% of the forest could be lost if spiralling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said. But even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is "irreversible".

Vicky Pope, of the Met Office's Hadley Centre, which carried out the study, said: "The impacts of climate change on the Amazon are much worse than we thought. As temperatures rise quickly over the coming century the damage to the forest won't be obvious straight away, but we could be storing up trouble for the future."

Tim Lenton, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, called the study, presented at a global warming conference in Copenhagen today , a "bombshell". He said: "When I was young I thought chopping down the trees would destroy the forest but now it seems that climate change will deliver the killer blow."

The study, which has been submitted to the journal Nature Geoscience, used computer models to investigate how the Amazon would respond to future temperature rises.

It found that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best case global warming scenario and the target for ambitious international plans to curb emissions, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought over the following century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%. "The forest as we know it would effectively be gone," Pope said.

Experts had previously predicted that global warming could cause significant "die-back" of the Amazon. The new research is the first to quantify the long-term effect.

Chris Jones, who led the research, told the conference: "A temperature rise of anything over 1C commits you to some future loss of Amazon forest. Even the commonly quoted 2C target already commits us to 20-40% loss. On any kind of pragmatic timescale, I think we should see loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible."

Peter Cox, professor of climate system dynamics at the University of Exeter, said the effects would be felt around the world. "Ecologically it would be a catastrophe and it would be taking a huge chance with our own climate. The tropics are drivers of the world's weather systems and killing the Amazon is likely to change them forever. We don't know exactly what would happen but we could expect more extreme weather." Massive Amazon loss would also amplify global warming "significantly" he said.

"Destroying the Amazon would also turn what is a significant carbon sink into a significant source."

Jones said the study showed that tree growth in high latitudes, such as Siberia, would increase, but would be unlikely to compensate for the carbon stocks lost from the Amazon. Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next decade, scientists say that there will only be around a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C.

This best-case emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2-3% per year to a decrease of 3% per year. For every 10 years this action is delayed, the most likely temperature rise increases by 0.5C.

Environmental campaigners said they were alarmed by the predictions. "With a rise of over 2C you begin to see a large-scale change to savannah," said Beatrix Richards, head of forest policy and trade at WWF UK. "You also lose major ecosystem services, such as keeping carbon levels stable, providing indigenous people with goods and services, and balancing rainfall patterns globally from the US grain belt to as far away as Kazakhstan. A 4C [rise] is a nightmare scenario that would move us into uncharted territory."

"People have known about the links between climate and forests for some time, but the alarming thing now is the level of certainty because real world observations are feeding into the computer models," said Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner and Green party candidate. "There really is no time for delay. Governments must cooperate to cut industrial emissions while at the same time halting deforestation, otherwise we'll have a mass extinction and a global warming catastrophe."

A separate study from the Met Office shows that, if temperatures do reach 2C, then there is a one-in-three chance they would stay that high for at least 100 years, whatever action was taken on carbon pollution.

The results were announced on the second day of a key climate science meeting in Copenhagen, which is intended to spur politicians into taking action to cut carbon pollution. It comes ahead of a UN summit in December, also in Copenhagen, where officials will try to agree a new global deal on climate to replace the Kyoto protocol. The results from the meeting will be published in the summer as a supplement to the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Positive feedback
Amazon dieback is one of the key positive feedbacks brought about by global warming. These are typically runaway processes in which global temperature rises lead to further releases of CO², which in turn brings about more global warming. In the Amazon this happens on a more localised scale but the result, increased forest death, also releases carbon into the atmosphere.

Experts predict that higher worldwide temperatures will reduce rainfall in the Amazon region, which will cause widespread local drought. With less water and tree growth, "homegrown" rainfall produced by the forest will reduce as well, as it depends on water passed into the atmosphere above the forests by the trees. The cycle continues, with even less rain causing more drought, and so on.

With no water, the root systems collapse and the trees fall over. The parched forest becomes tinderbox dry and more susceptible to fire, which can spread to destroy the still-healthy patches of forest.

Other positive feedback effects expected by scientists, are releases of carbon stored in frozen arctic ecosystems and an increase in the sun's energy absorbed by the planet as ice melts.
Topics

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copenhagen climate change conference 2009

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intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc)

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Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say

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Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

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Geographic perspectives on sustainability and human-environment system - Amazon Rainforest

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Geographic perspectives on sustainability and human-environment system - Amazon Rainforest

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- pollination of rainforest trees are difficult due to the diversity of the ecosystem. If a mutalistic relation between bird and bee species (such as the humming bird or bumble bee) to efficiently pollinate all the tree species in a specific pattern. Another way to increase pollination rates is to let two species grow near each other, however this puts the species at risk of extinction due to competition.
- rainforest soil is actually extremely infertile, as most of the nutrients are absorbed by the vegetation on the ground. Not only this, but the soil itself is acidic, and can’t absorb soil as effectively due to the mass amount of running water, taking the nutrients from the ground.
- deforestation is caused by increase in population, medical needs, shelter, material, farming and agriculture.

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Case Study: The Amazon Rainforest | GEOG 30N: Geographic Perspectives on Sustainability and Human-Environment Systems, 2011

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In order to qualify as a tropical rainforest, an area must receive over 250 centimeters of rainfall each year and have an average temperature above 24 degrees centigrade, as well as never experiencing frosts. The Amazon rainforest in South America is the largest in the world.

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https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/spectacular-facts-about-amazon-rainforest.php

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Article about how climate change is affecting the amazon rainforest

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Article about how climate change is affecting the amazon rainforest

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Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

The research, by some of Britain's leading experts on climate change, shows that even severe cuts in deforestation and carbon emissions will fail to save the emblematic South American jungle, the destruction of which has become a powerful symbol of human impact on the planet. Up to 85% of the forest could be lost if spiralling greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the experts said. But even under the most optimistic climate change scenarios, the destruction of large parts of the forest is "irreversible".

Vicky Pope, of the Met Office's Hadley Centre, which carried out the study, said: "The impacts of climate change on the Amazon are much worse than we thought. As temperatures rise quickly over the coming century the damage to the forest won't be obvious straight away, but we could be storing up trouble for the future."

Tim Lenton, a climate expert at the University of East Anglia, called the study, presented at a global warming conference in Copenhagen today , a "bombshell". He said: "When I was young I thought chopping down the trees would destroy the forest but now it seems that climate change will deliver the killer blow."

The study, which has been submitted to the journal Nature Geoscience, used computer models to investigate how the Amazon would respond to future temperature rises.

It found that a 2C rise above pre-industrial levels, widely considered the best case global warming scenario and the target for ambitious international plans to curb emissions, would still see 20-40% of the Amazon die off within 100 years. A 3C rise would see 75% of the forest destroyed by drought over the following century, while a 4C rise would kill 85%. "The forest as we know it would effectively be gone," Pope said.

Experts had previously predicted that global warming could cause significant "die-back" of the Amazon. The new research is the first to quantify the long-term effect.

Chris Jones, who led the research, told the conference: "A temperature rise of anything over 1C commits you to some future loss of Amazon forest. Even the commonly quoted 2C target already commits us to 20-40% loss. On any kind of pragmatic timescale, I think we should see loss of the Amazon forest as irreversible."

Peter Cox, professor of climate system dynamics at the University of Exeter, said the effects would be felt around the world. "Ecologically it would be a catastrophe and it would be taking a huge chance with our own climate. The tropics are drivers of the world's weather systems and killing the Amazon is likely to change them forever. We don't know exactly what would happen but we could expect more extreme weather." Massive Amazon loss would also amplify global warming "significantly" he said.

"Destroying the Amazon would also turn what is a significant carbon sink into a significant source."

Jones said the study showed that tree growth in high latitudes, such as Siberia, would increase, but would be unlikely to compensate for the carbon stocks lost from the Amazon. Even with drastic cuts in emissions in the next decade, scientists say that there will only be around a 50% chance of keeping global temperatures rises below 2C.

This best-case emissions scenario is based on emissions peaking in 2015 and quickly changing from an increase of 2-3% per year to a decrease of 3% per year. For every 10 years this action is delayed, the most likely temperature rise increases by 0.5C.

Environmental campaigners said they were alarmed by the predictions. "With a rise of over 2C you begin to see a large-scale change to savannah," said Beatrix Richards, head of forest policy and trade at WWF UK. "You also lose major ecosystem services, such as keeping carbon levels stable, providing indigenous people with goods and services, and balancing rainfall patterns globally from the US grain belt to as far away as Kazakhstan. A 4C [rise] is a nightmare scenario that would move us into uncharted territory."

"People have known about the links between climate and forests for some time, but the alarming thing now is the level of certainty because real world observations are feeding into the computer models," said Tony Juniper, an environmental campaigner and Green party candidate. "There really is no time for delay. Governments must cooperate to cut industrial emissions while at the same time halting deforestation, otherwise we'll have a mass extinction and a global warming catastrophe."

A separate study from the Met Office shows that, if temperatures do reach 2C, then there is a one-in-three chance they would stay that high for at least 100 years, whatever action was taken on carbon pollution.

The results were announced on the second day of a key climate science meeting in Copenhagen, which is intended to spur politicians into taking action to cut carbon pollution. It comes ahead of a UN summit in December, also in Copenhagen, where officials will try to agree a new global deal on climate to replace the Kyoto protocol. The results from the meeting will be published in the summer as a supplement to the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Positive feedback
Amazon dieback is one of the key positive feedbacks brought about by global warming. These are typically runaway processes in which global temperature rises lead to further releases of CO², which in turn brings about more global warming. In the Amazon this happens on a more localised scale but the result, increased forest death, also releases carbon into the atmosphere.

Experts predict that higher worldwide temperatures will reduce rainfall in the Amazon region, which will cause widespread local drought. With less water and tree growth, "homegrown" rainfall produced by the forest will reduce as well, as it depends on water passed into the atmosphere above the forests by the trees. The cycle continues, with even less rain causing more drought, and so on.

With no water, the root systems collapse and the trees fall over. The parched forest becomes tinderbox dry and more susceptible to fire, which can spread to destroy the still-healthy patches of forest.

Other positive feedback effects expected by scientists, are releases of carbon stored in frozen arctic ecosystems and an increase in the sun's energy absorbed by the planet as ice melts.
Topics

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copenhagen climate change conference 2009

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intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc)

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Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say

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Global warming will wreck attempts to save the Amazon rainforest, according to a devastating new study which predicts that one-third of its trees will be killed by even modest temperature rises.

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The third page of this article has some good cause and effects on the Amazon rainforest.

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Tropical rainforests have distinct characteristics that support a wide variety of different . This means that they have a high . The or living components of the ecosystem and the or non-living components of the ecosystem depend on one another - a change in one leads to a change in the other.

Very wet with over 2,000 mm of rainfall per year.

Very warm with an average daily temperature of 28°C. The temperature never drops below 20°C and rarely exceeds 35°C.

The climate is consistent all year round. There are no seasons.

A thin layer of fertile soil is found at the surface where the dead leaves decompose.

It is red in colour because it is rich in iron.

Due to heavy rainfall the nutrients are quickly washed out of the soil.

Plants and animals

The warm and very wet climate provides perfect conditions for plant growth.

The wide range of plant supports many different animals, birds and insects.

Species have to the conditions of the rainforest, eg trees and plants have shallow-reaching roots to absorb nutrients from the thin fertile layer in the soil.

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BBC Bitesize - GCSE Geography - Tropical rainforests - AQA - Revision 1

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Tropical rainforests have distinct characteristics that support a wide variety of different . This means that they have a high . The or living components of the ecosystem and the or non-living components of the ecosystem depend on one another - a change in one leads to a change in the other.

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facts about the amazon rainforest you probably didn't know :)

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2. The name 'Amazon' was given by Spanish explorer Francisco Orellana, after he was attacked by female warriors named theIcamiabas, or 'women without husbands'. He compared them to the Amazons of Greek mythology.

3. The Amazon delivers 55 million gallons of water into the Atlantic ocean every second.

4. More than 20% of the world's oxygen is produced by the Amazon rainforest.

5. If Amazonia were a country, it would be the 9th largest in the world, measuring in at a whopping 2.5 million square miles.

6. 25% of all western pharmaceuticals come from rainforest based ingredients, yet less than 1% of the trees and plants in the Amazon have ever been tested by scientists.

7. The Amazon rainforest contains more than 3,000 fruits. Only 200 of these are consumed in the western world.

8. More than 80% of the world's food has its origins in the Amazon rainforest.

9. One hectare (2.47 acres) of the rainforest can contain more than 750 types of tree, and 1,500 types of plant.

10. The Amazon rainforest can be found in 9 South American countries; Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the three Guyanas.

11. The rainforest floor is very dark, with less than 1% of the light making it through the canopy of the trees.

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15 Facts About The Amazon You Didn't Know

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The Amazon Rainforest and its namesake river can only be described by superlatives and are famous the world over. So you think you know everything about it? Guess again. Here are our favorite 15 facts that you probably didn't know - until now.

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Article Outlining the potential of the future for the Amazon

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Abstract

The potential loss or large-scale degradation of the tropical rainforests has become one of the iconic images of the impacts of twenty-first century environmental change and may be one of our century's most profound legacies. In the Amazon region, the direct threat of deforestation and degradation is now strongly intertwined with an indirect challenge we are just beginning to understand: the possibility of substantial regional drought driven by global climate change. The Amazon region hosts more than half of the world's remaining tropical forests, and some parts have among the greatest concentrations of biodiversity found anywhere on Earth. Overall, the region is estimated to host about a quarter of all global biodiversity. It acts as one of the major 'flywheels' of global climate, transpiring water and generating clouds, affecting atmospheric circulation across continents and hemispheres, and storing substantial reserves of biomass and soil carbon. Hence, the ongoing degradation of Amazonia is a threat to local climate stability and a contributor to the global atmospheric climate change crisis. Conversely, the stabilization of Amazonian deforestation and degradation would be an opportunity for local adaptation to climate change, as well as a potential global contributor towards mitigation of climate change. However, addressing deforestation in the Amazon raises substantial challenges in policy, governance, sustainability and economic science. This paper introduces a theme issue dedicated to a multidisciplinary analysis of these challenges.

Keywords: tropical forest, deforestation, climate change, fire, Amazonia, Brazil

1. Introduction

This theme issue arises from an international workshop held at Oriel College, Oxford, UK, in March 2007, and brings together 25 original pieces on some of the latest research about the drivers, processes and impacts of environmental changes in the Amazon and some potential new policy responses. It addresses a number of crucial questions regarding the current environmental change taking place. How much deforestation has occurred, what is driving it, how fast is it taking place now and how much do we expect in the future? What are the mechanisms linking global climate change to the Amazon-specific climate change, and how well are they understood? Is the climate of the region changing, and how do deforestation and climate change interact? Will anthropogenic global warming really lead to severe drought and forest dieback in the Amazon, as famously predicted by the Met Office Hadley Centre model ( Betts et al. 2004; Cox et al. 2004)? How well do we understand the resilience or vulnerability of the Amazonian forests to drought, fires and other aspects of climate change? Finally, how are humans responding: what environmental policies are likely to be effective in preserving the forest while improving the welfare of the inhabitants of the region?

2. Human drivers of land cover change

The most visible and imminent threat to the Amazon forest is direct deforestation, accompanied by the degradation of surrounding forests by logging and the accidental spreading of fire from agriculture. By 2001, approximately 837 000 km ² of the Amazonian forests had been cleared, approximately 13% of their original extent (6.2 million km ²), with gross rates over the 1990s being 25 000 km ² yr −1. Approximately 80% of this deforestation has been in Brazil, where it has been driven by planned expansion of roads into forest frontier regions, accompanied by unofficial unplanned roads, by cattle ranching and, more recently, soya bean agro-industry. In recent years, there has been a substantial reduction in Brazilian deforestation rates from a peak of 27 400 km ² yr −1 in 2004 to approximately 11 000 km ² yr −1 in 2007, owing to falling prices for soya and active Brazilian government intervention.

Perz et al. (2008) examine the dynamics surrounding planned and unplanned road expansion and land-use change. Nepstad et al. (2008) provide an overview of the dynamics where the intensive use of fire in preparing land for agriculture and the leakage of this fire frequently degrades any surrounding remaining forests, potentially pushing the whole region through an eco-climatic 'tipping point' into a more degraded scrub system. Regional and global economic forces drive local actors to take these actions. A new challenge arises from the potential expansion of biofuels or agroenergy: Sawyer (2008) and Nepstad et al. (2008) put this threat into context and explore its implications for future deforestation. The history of the Amazon region has been one of the booms and busts, as new valuable products are discovered, exploited and then replaced by cheaper alternatives. This history has been told many times, but Sawyer's piece uses that history to look into the Amazon's future. With much uncertainty and controversy surrounding biofuels as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, the current biofuel boom could be quite rapidly replaced by a bust. That is, the current wave of destruction in the Amazon could leave lasting consequences for the natural ecosystem but few lasting social benefits.

3. Climate/atmospheric change and vulnerabilities of the forest to drought

While deforestation is the most visible threat to the Amazon ecosystem, climate change is emerging as a creeping threat to the future of the region. Global atmospheric change has emerged as one of the greatest challenges of our century. In the context of the Amazon, the major agent of change in the forest ecosystem would most likely be decreased dry-season precipitation. Of the 23 global climate models employed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 report, 50-70% predict a substantial (above 20%) reduction of dry-season rainfall in eastern Amazonia under mid-range greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, 40% in central Amazonia and 20% in the west ( Malhi et al. 2008). Water stress may be compounded by rising air temperatures, which in Amazonia have been rising at a rate of 0.25°C per decade ( Malhi & Wright 2004), and are projected to rise by 3-8°C over the twenty-first century.

With the ecological and human systems of the Amazon being generally adapted to high rainfall and an infrequent fire regime, the occurrence of drought can provide a key driver of variability and change in both forested and agricultural areas. This volume presents results from a number of studies exploring the response of Amazonian systems to fire and drought.

The responses of intact fire-free forest to drought have recently been examined in two pioneering and ambitious experiments, in which a fraction of the precipitation falling through one hectare of rainforest canopy was collected and prevented from entering the soil over several years ( Brando et al. 2008; Meir et al. 2008). The forests seem fairly resilient to a short-term drought, but persistent drought begins to cause a breakdown of forest structure. After 3 years of drought, death of large trees begins to occur; although these large trees may have deep roots and can access deep soil moisture when the soil near the surface is dry, they are also exposed above the canopy and so are subject to intense radiation stress ( Brando et al. 2008). In a similar drought experiment, the drying of the soil was found to lead to a decrease in carbon release by respiration and hence an enhanced carbon sink in the short term ( Meir et al. 2008), although this would turn into a carbon source in the face of long-term degradation.

Hence the response of forests to persistent drought has intrinsic inertia and has the potential to be slow and gradual, but these dynamics are fundamentally altered when fire is brought into the equation. Aragão et al. (2008) present a satellite remote-sensing analysis of the relationship between drought and fire incidence and argue that the leakage of fires from agricultural areas into surrounding forests is the most pervasive and threatening synergy between deforestation and climate change. There have been very few studies of the impacts of fires on the Amazon forest biodiversity, biomass and function: Barlow & Peres (2008) present detailed results from a path-breaking study in eastern Amazonia. Their study fills in the details of a harrowing picture of one possible future for Amazonia: a forest split into small fragments, degrading through fire leakage from surrounding agropastoral areas, drying through both global climate change and local deforestation, a degraded biodiversity-poor, low biomass scrub where the world's most biologically rich ecosystem once stood.

Some areas of forest may be more vulnerable than others to changes in the large-scale climate associated with drought. For example, the northwest of Amazonia currently has high rainfall caused by trade winds squeezing against the Andes mountains, and so may be less close to critical thresholds of precipitation. Also, some smaller areas of the southwest Amazonia adjacent to the Andes receive high rainfall due to orographical effects. These areas may act as refugia under scenarios of climate variability or change; a key conservation priority is to preserve these potential refugia and maintain their connectivity to the wider forest landscape ( Killeen & Solórzano 2008).

4. Recent drought, its impacts and human responses

The 2005 drought in Amazonia raised awareness of the potential threat of a more drought-prone Amazon, and also provided an opportunity to study the responses of the human and ecological system to such drought events. Marengo et al. (2008) explore the climatology of this event, and Aragão et al. (2008) explore its impacts on fire occurrence. While previous drought events had been linked to anomalously warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the equatorial Pacific associated with El Niño, Marengo et al. (2008) show that the reduced precipitation in 2005 was linked to a warm anomaly in the tropical North Atlantic.

A key question is whether there is a general trend towards drought conditions and, if so, whether this is associated with anthropogenic climate change. Li et al. (2008) show that the standard precipitation index (SPI), a measure of changes in precipitation normalized by the standard deviation, does indeed suggest a more pervasive drying trend over the southern Amazon. Using the international set of climate simulations assessed in the recent IPCC Fourth Assessment Report as a guide, the trend in SPI cannot be explained by natural internal variability of the climate system. However, it is not yet possible to attribute the observed changes to anthropogenic climate change.

One notable political response to the 2005 drought was the establishment of a 'situation room' by the state government of Acre, Brazil (the region at the epicentre of the drought), where information from climate models, near real-time satellite image analysis of drought and fires, and other sources was gathered and assessed in order to coordinate and focus state and national efforts ( Boyd 2008). Based on this information, daily email briefings went to inform the deployment of local authorities and Brazilian army units fighting fires; still in many cases, the fires were too overwhelming to be brought under control. What remains today, however, is a networked set of actors and institutions which is better at collecting detailed and timely environmental information and in acting upon that information: this social system has become somewhat more 'adaptive'. Such a system may be an early model of the adaptation response required by Amazonian governments in the face of increasing drought frequency.

In agricultural areas, the ability of farmers to adapt to climate variability and change is a crucial aspect of their vulnerability. Brondizio & Moran (2008) found that over 50% of farmers in their household surveys did not remember the gravity of one of the strongest droughts on record which occurred just 4 years earlier. They found that climate data were provided at the wrong scale (at the state or regional level, without real local information), and that there was a serious lack of agricultural extension assistance and community organization input into information provision. A major hurdle to adaptation by farmers was the extremely high turnover rate of people responsible for farms: newcomers lacked nuanced understandings of the local climate and ecosystem and also social networks that would provide them with better information and support during droughts. Crucially, communities of newcomers were less likely to be able to organize the cooperation needed to prevent fires from spreading accidentally.

5. Regional climate change due to future global warming

Previously, much attention has been given to the results of the Met Office Hadley Centre climate model, which suggests a strong drying of the Amazonian climate over the twenty-first century, resulting in a so-called 'dieback' of the forest. In the most extreme simulation, produced by a version of the model which includes feedbacks from the forest dieback and global soil respiration on global and regional climate change under medium-high emission scenarios, the annual precipitation averaged across Amazonia is reduced from approximately 1800 mm at the present day to less than 1100 mm by the 2040s, levels that are more typical of semi-arid savannah regions. By the 2070s, the simulated precipitation falls to less than 800 mm. While the magnitude of this reduction depends on the feedbacks from the forest itself on the regional water cycle, the Hadley Centre model still simulates some drying of the region even if the forest cover is maintained at the present-day state ( Betts et al. 2008).

One of the key advances presented in this volume is a new understanding of distinct roles played by anomalous warming of the tropical Atlantic and Pacific sea surface in affecting rainfall in Amazonian dry seasons and wet seasons, respectively ( Good et al. 2008; Harris et al. 2008). These regions affect the Hadley-Walker atmospheric circulation that in turn causes shifts in the location and magnitude of convective rainfall. Precipitation in the dry season over much of Amazonia is reduced as a result of changes in North Atlantic SSTs, and although the SST changes in this region would by themselves lead to an increase in wet-season rainfall, this is more than offset by the influence of tropical Pacific SSTs' positive anomalies that act to decrease wet-season rainfall ( Harris et al. 2008). The critical threshold in ecosystem viability is reached when there is insufficient wet-season rainfall to fully recharge soil water reserves depleted in the preceding dry season.

Huntingford et al. (2008) find that the simulated drying and forest dieback in Amazonia in the Hadley Centre model is robust to changes in key parameter settings in the model, with different settings giving different degrees of drying and dieback, but all combinations of settings predicting drying and dieback to some degree. Looking at all climate models used by the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, there is no consistent trend predicted in annual precipitation, but most models tend to demonstrate a reduction in dry-season rainfall, particularly in eastern Amazonia ( Malhi et al. 2008). Li et al. (2008) take this analysis one step further. Rather than treating all climate models as equally valid, they attach greater weighting to those that are more able to reproduce the observed drying trend in recent decades. Once this is done, the estimated probability of drying of Amazonia over the twenty-first century is increased over that calculated from simple averaging.

6. Ecosystem responses to climate change

In the Hadley Centre coupled climate-vegetation model, the warming, drying climate reduced the mean net primary productivity, NPP, across Amazonia by approximately 52% by 2050 under a medium-high greenhouse gas emissions scenario ( Harris et al. 2008). When the direct effects of CO ₂ on plant physiology are included in the model, NPP still reduces but to a lesser extent of 33% ( Harris et al. 2008) due to the enhancement of photosynthesis by CO ₂ fertilization ( Lloyd & Farquhar 2008). These responses are qualitatively robust to changes in the model formulation such as introduction of an improved response of photosynthesis to solar radiation, and an improved representation of vegetation dynamics ( Huntingford et al. 2008).

When the components of the climate-only influence on NPP are isolated, the changes in SST patterns alone cause a 30% reduction in NPP mainly because of the shifts in atmospheric circulation and precipitation reduction ( Harris et al. 2008). The local warming associated with global warming alone (with no changes in SST pattern) is simulated to lead to a 23% reduction in NPP. This suggests that while the changes in regional precipitation provide the dominant impact on Amazonian ecosystems in these climate scenarios, there would still be an impact due to warming alone. The reductions in NPP simulated under a long-term drying scenario are similar to those observed over 3-5 years in drought experiments ( Brando et al. 2008). However, Lloyd & Farquhar (2008) argue from consideration of plant physiology that the acclimation of plant photosynthesis to higher temperatures is not considered in most vegetation models. Coupled with the decreased transpiration, increased plant water use efficiency and direct CO ₂ fertilization of photosynthesis, there may be a sustained increase in NPP that, in the absence of substantial drought, would persist well into the twenty-first century. Observational evidence of such increase in NPP and biomass is provided by long-term forest plots being monitored by the RAINFOR programme ( Phillips et al. 2008). Their estimated carbon sink in intact, old-growth Amazonian rainforests is 0.6 Pg C yr −1, similar in magnitude to the carbon source from Amazonian deforestation, and an additional ecosystem service provided by the Amazonian forest. These authors emphasize, however, the uncertainty as to how long this sink will persist in the face of climate change, particularly when ecological interactions are considered. One such possible ecological interaction is fast-growing species such as pioneer trees and lianas gaining an advantage from higher CO ₂ concentrations levels, increased forest turnover and gap formation ( Phillips et al. 2008). With faster-growing species having lower wood density, higher turnover and hence storing less carbon than slower-growing species, a shift in the competitive balance could lead to a reduction in overall ecosystem carbon stocks and hence a net emission of CO ₂. Currently, no vegetation models are capable of adequately representing such ecological processes.

An alternative approach to assessing longer term responses of Amazonian ecosystems to climate change is via the palaeoecological record ( Bush et al. 2008; Mayle & Power 2008). In the Early-Mid Holocene period (8000-4000 years BP), the southern Amazon was substantially drier than the present day because of precessional changes in the seasonality of solar irradiance. Yet there is little evidence of large-scale replacement of forest by savannah except at the margins ( Mayle & Power 2008). The evidence suggests some inherent resilience to drier conditions, at least in the absence of widespread fire ignition by human activity ( Bush et al. 2008).

The highly biodiverse montane regions (the Andes, and the Brazilian and Guyanan shields) warrant particular attention, both as potential refugia for warming intolerant lowland species ( Killeen & Solórzano 2008) and as vulnerable ecosystems in their own right. Warming and drying of the climate will lead to an increase in the altitude of particular temperature zones ( Bush et al. 2008) and other key meteorological quantities such as the lifting condensation level ( Cowling et al. 2008). Species and indeed whole ecosystems may therefore need to migrate upslope in order to remain within the conditions to which they are adapted, as they did at the last glacial-interglacial transition ( Mayle & Power 2008). The rate of warming at the last transition was 10-100 times slower than that expected over the twenty-first century, however, and the ability of species to migrate at sufficient rates remains an unexplored question.

7. Interactions between climate change and direct human effects

With both land-use and climate changes being potential drivers of change in Amazonia, it is important to consider how these two drivers will interact. Bush et al. (2008) use charcoal records to study the fire history of the region over last 2000 years, and find links to both natural cycles and changes in human society. Over most of the past two millennia, peaks in fire activity coincide with peaks in solar forcing, suggesting variability in fire regimes driven by naturally forced climate variability. However, fire peaks decline after the indigenous population crash ca 1700 caused by European conquest and disease advance, suggesting an anthropogenic component to the fire regime in addition to the natural component. The lesson from prehistory is that climatic change makes the forests potentially vulnerable, but humans are needed to light the fires that can lead to retreat of forest.

A reduction in the Amazon forest cover, whether caused directly by deforestation or indirectly by climate change, could lead to further effects on climate at both local and global scales ( Betts et al. 2008). Reduction in forest cover leads to changes in evaporation and the surface energy balance, which further reduces precipitation, especially further inland. Increases in the lifting condensation level due to climate change may be enhanced further by loss of the forest and reductions in evaporation ( Cowling et al. 2008). Moreover, changes in carbon uptake and release affect the rate of increase of CO ₂ in the atmosphere, both as a consequence of direct emissions from forest loss and as a result of a lost opportunity for uptake of carbon in response to CO ₂ rise. The loss of substantial areas of Amazonian forest, from whatever cause, would therefore contribute to an acceleration of the rate of global climate change which again magnifies the regional drying in Amazonia ( Betts et al. 2008).

Changes in global vegetation cover in the Hadley Centre model may also modify the climate through other geochemical cycles, specifically the emissions of mineral dust and isoprene ( Betts et al. 2008). These processes have not yet been included in current Earth System Model simulations, but have the potential to exert further impacts on the climate system.

8. Climate and conservation policies and the Amazon forest

Following the 2007 United Nations Climate Conference in Bali, the negotiations on an international framework for reducing greenhouse gas emissions now also include a component known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). The exact mechanisms are still to be negotiated, but the general principle would be that countries or stakeholders that own forests, and who would otherwise have continued with deforestation, would receive payments for reducing further deforestation. Several papers in this volume discuss both the potential and the implementation of challenges that REDD faces as an effective mechanism to maintain the extent and resilience of the Amazon forest and its human and non-human denizens.

Ebeling & Yasué (2008) discuss how the inclusion of REDD credits in international carbon markets could generate billions of euros of carbon finance with as little as 10% reduction in deforestation. REDD could also provide co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and social justice; however, there are still significant challenges to its effectiveness ( Ebeling & Yasué 2008; Hall 2008). There is a need to reward only genuine reductions in deforestation and to avoid penalizing countries which already have achieved lowered rates of deforestation. There are risks of 'leakage' of deforestation, i.e. displacement of the deforestation activity to another location, but Ebeling & Yasué suggest that this risk could be reduced by awarding REDD credits at the national level rather than at the project level.

Permanence of forest conserved under REDD is also an issue, especially given the possibility of detrimental climate changes that may lead to dieback of forests that have been saved from deforestation ( Ebeling & Yasué 2008). It might be argued that such a situation would result in an opportunity cost of avoiding deforestation (e.g. preventing the land from being turned over to mining or agricultural production), but without the benefit of mitigating climate change. Ebeling & Yasué make the case that this argument is too simplistic, as it ignores the benefits of delaying emissions even if emissions still ultimately occur; the cumulative accumulation of gases and warming effect would still have been reduced. Furthermore, we have argued above that severe forest loss due to climate change is a possibility but not highly probable in the absence of further expansion of direct deforestation. Indeed, REDD would not only be a direct mitigation strategy reducing CO ₂ emissions, but also a regional adaptation strategy reducing the risk of fire-driven dieback of remaining Amazonian forest and maintaining the eco-climatic resilience of the biome.

REDD has the potential to generate greater financial resources for forest protection, but this needs to be coupled with thoughtful and forward-thinking management of reserves and the land between them; this may help to minimize the impacts of climate change on biodiversity ( Sawyer 2008). An example of the kind of thinking required is provided by Killeen & Solórzano (2008) in the context of migration corridors to thermal refugia on the slopes of the Andes. An unanticipated migration challenge in this region is the presence of the low Andean front range, largely separated from the main Andean range by lowland forests. Under warming conditions, it is possible that species may migrate onto the low front range, but without intervention would then be trapped and unable to traverse the lowland forest gap to reach the main Andean range. However, Killeen & Solórzano identify a few critical regions where there is a connectivity between the front and main ranges; these regions may act as effective conduits for species migration and are clear conservation priorities. Such strategies for 'weathering the storm' could be a critical adaptation strategy carried out in synergy with mitigation efforts such as REDD, and may be especially important if there is a need to deal with an 'overshoot' scenario in which climate change exceeds an intended target and is then subsequently reduced ( IPCC 2007). However, Nepstad et al. (2008) point out that simply conserving forest cover by eliminating direct deforestation may not be enough: protection of the forest may also need active fire control when droughts occur, as was pioneered in Acre in 2005 ( Boyd 2008).

The funds generated through REDD in themselves will not automatically slow down deforestation; the effective implementation of REDD will confront many issues, including ethical concerns, local land-use rights and social justice, effective monitoring capacity and poor governance of the forest frontier ( Hall 2008; Lemos & Roberts 2008). Poor governance can create a barrier between the receipt of international funding and the actual implementation of efforts for reducing deforestation. In their global assessment, Ebeling & Yasué (2008) find that those countries with the greatest opportunity for financial benefit from REDD credits may not have the appropriate governance structures to actually implement reduced deforestation policies effectively. Hall (2008) presents an important case study of a Brazilian scheme that attempted to provide payment for ecosystem services to populations using the forest sustainably, but which has not (as yet) provided the promised payments to small landowners. Co-benefits of REDD for social justice may be difficult to achieve, as the most efficient means of implementing REDD policies would be to target the small number of major landowners rather than the very numerous smaller landowners who would have the greatest need for the financial support ( Hall 2008). Hall's piece provides a cautiously optimistic endorsement of why REDD is needed and some initial lessons on how it would have to be administered to be effective.

REDD policies are likely to require a strong network of support in order to be effective, including a wide range of stakeholders such as indigenous communities, industry, and regional and national governments ( Lemos & Roberts 2008). This requires an engagement with these groups rather than a focus simply on ecosystems themselves. The World Bank, for example, shifted in the 1990s to recognize that protection of the Amazon ecosystems required support and outreach to broad segments of society and not just procedures to manage ecosystems. This is obviously difficult, and in the case of potentially paying for reduced deforestation, large portions of local economies may be eliminated, such as those involved in extracting, processing, transporting and marketing local products. Lemos & Roberts argue that an alternative for local economies will require much more than just payments that cover 'opportunity costs' narrowly defined-many powerful actors will lose out in such scenarios and may resist the programme's implementation.

Perz et al. (2008) describe how most proposals for addressing uncontrolled deforestation are either 'state based' or 'community based'. State-based approaches call for regulations, enforcement, the creation of parks and reserves, and fiscal incentives for more sustainable management of lands. On the other hand, community-based approaches-established by indigenous groups and longstanding residents like rubber tappers and riverine peoples-manage natural resources from 'the bottom-up', by restricting access and creating local rules about overuse and systems of enforcing compliance. Under extreme pressures from global economic and national forces, however, Perz et al. (2008) argue that a 'hybrid approach' is needed, which would have the state providing the resources and oversight for largely local consultation and development of resource management. They examine the three-nation MAP initiative (between Brazil, Peru and Bolivia) as one of the region's first efforts at 'hybrid governance' by combining infrastructure improvement and economic development in the region with some efforts to protect ecosystems.

The subject of mitigating and adapting to climate change is probably the most dynamic current interface between natural science, social science and economics, and regional, national and international policy. As such, it raises challenges in creating effective dialogue between these arenas. Alves (2008) discusses the process of science influencing environmental policy, and notes that it is not enough to focus purely on the natural sciences. Even if the natural science studies are multidisciplinary and integrated in their investigations of processes of change in regions such as the Amazon, this fails to recognize that humans are also fully part of the system. Proper inclusion of the social sciences into multidisciplinary studies is crucial if the results are to be relevant to policy. Much of the work on changes in climate, ecology and land use in Amazonia over the past decade has taken place through the large-scale atmosphere-biosphere experiment in Amazonia (LBA) that has its roots in climatological studies. Social science perspectives have begun to be brought into LBA and are increasing in prominence; Alves (2008) warns that badly flawed policies have been deployed in the past in the Amazon when social and political factors are not well understood.

9. Conclusions

This volume brings together 25 papers on some of the latest research on the drivers, processes and impacts of environmental changes in the Amazon and potential public policy responses. Despite a substantial slowdown in deforestation in Brazil over the past 3 years, the Amazon remains subject to an unquestionable threat from deforestation and degradation, arising mainly from ranching, farming, road building and logging. Past rebounds in deforestation rates have shown how conservation efforts can founder in the face of the twin pressures of a global economy offering higher prices for commodities and national governments seeking to accelerate their national economies by integrating the productive capacity of their Amazon regions. What is new and still uncertain is that there may also be a major compounding threat from global warming, particularly through a potential increase in drought risk. Recent drying trends in Amazonia show some similarities to those projected in computer models, but it is not yet possible to attribute these events to anthropogenic climate change. While the forest may be resilient to some level of drought or other climate change, the additional impacts of deforestation and degradation may reduce this resilience. Therefore, it is not a case of simply establishing whether deforestation or climate change is more important-the two threats may compound each other and hence should be considered together when planning and implementing land-use or conservation policies in Amazonia. The inclusion of carbon credits for REDD within the Kyoto Protocol has the potential to help slow deforestation to mitigate climate change and confer other benefits for biodiversity and human welfare; however, there are still a number of challenges to this. The challenge of maintaining the ecosystem services of Amazonia (and other regions) in the face of deforestation pressures and climate change will require interdisciplinary research and analyses that span the climatological, ecological, social, political and economic sciences, and interface effectively with regional and international policy. We hope that this volume makes a useful contribution to this effort.

¹ There is some confusion in usage of the acronym REDD. It is most commonly used as an abbreviation for Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation. Official UNFCCC documentation tends to refer to Reduced Emissions from Deforestation in developing countries, but abbreviates this to RED-dc, not REDD. The acronym RED is also used when only deforestation is discussed and not degradation, as in some papers in this volume.

One contribution of 27 to a Theme Issue 'Climate change and the fate of the Amazon'.

References

Betts R.A, Cox P.M, Collins M, Harris P.P, Huntingford C, Jones C.D. The role of ecosystem-atmosphere interactions in simulated Amazonian precipitation decrease and forest dieback under global climate warming.

Cox P.M, Betts R.A, Collins M, Harris P.P, Huntingford C, Jones C.D. Amazonian forest dieback under climate-carbon cycle projections for the 21st century.

IPCC. Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK: 2007. Climate change 2007: contribution of working group 1 to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Lloyd J, Farquhar G.D. Effects of rising temperatures and [CO[₂] on the physiology of tropical forest trees. PMC free article]

Malhi Y, Roberts J.T.R, Betts R.A, Killeen T.J, Li W, Nobre C.A. Climate change, deforestation, and the fate of the Amazon.

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The future of the Amazon: new perspectives from climate, ecosystem and social sciences

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The potential loss or large-scale degradation of the tropical rainforests has become one of the iconic images of the impacts of twenty-first century environmental change and may be one of our century's most profound legacies. In the Amazon region, the ...

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Article about causes of environmental change

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Effects of drought on the Amazin Rainforest

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A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds light on the long-term effects of drought on the Amazon rainforest - giving clues about how the rainforest might be affected by global warming in the future. The researchers report that the severe drought that hit the rainforest in 2005 had lasting effects on the forest canopy, such that it remained damaged at least four years later.

The effects of the 2005 drought have been debated since 2007, when researchers reported in Science that photosynthesis within the canopy had increased, leading the Amazon basin to 'green up' during the dry period. But in 2010 another group reported that they were unable to reproduce the results using the same data.

"The 'green-up' is a short-term response and a bit of a red herring," says Oliver Phillips, a tropical ecologist at the University of Leeds, UK. But the latest study "transcends that debate", he says. "The question of the underlying health of the forest is much deeper than the instantaneous response."

Bare branches

A drawback of the method used in the earlier studies - which used satellite measurements to estimate forest greenness using reflected solar radiation - is that the data can be muddied by clouds and atmospheric aerosols. So for the latest study, Sassan Saatchi, a remote-sensing expert at the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, studied the forest's microwave 'silhouette', showing its contours instead of its greenness. To look at canopy structure, he and his colleagues used microwave satellite data, which are unaffected by clouds, from a NASA probe. When it passed over lush canopy, the satellite sensor recorded a smooth signal. Bare branches, thinned leaves and missing trees showed more roughness.

The researchers found that more than 70 million hectares of rainforest in the western Amazon - an area nearly twice the size of California - were hit by the drought. And the canopy's recovery dragged on long after the drought ended, with its biomass and fullness still below pre-drought levels in 2009 when the satellite suffered a mechanical failure. In 2010, an even stronger drought hit a larger swathe of the Amazon.

Bad timing

"This is the first piece of really strong evidence that the drought has had a negative impact on the forest," says Greg Asner, an environmental scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, California.

The latest analysis paints a grim picture for Amazonian rainforests should severe droughts become more frequent. Most Amazonian droughts are driven by warmer surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, but the severe droughts of 2005 and 2010 seem to have been influenced by warmer sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic Ocean.

It could change the drought outlook in the next report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due in 2014. The most recent report, released in 2007 and based on climate-modelling experiments done before the droughts, was more "speculative", says Ranga Myneni, an expert in the remote sensing of vegetation at Boston University in Massachusetts, and a co-author on the latest study.

Saatchi says that he hopes to extend the analysis past the 2010 drought using data from the Indian satellite Oceansat-2. If the droughts continue to occur every 5-10 years, the forest edges could begin to transition to dry forests, he warns. "We'd like to say something about how the Amazonian forest has been doing since 2009," he says.

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Severe drought has lasting effects on Amazon

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A study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences sheds light on the long-term effects of drought on the Amazon rainforest - giving clues about how the rainforest might be affected by global warming in the future.

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Article about human and biophysical processes that add to environmental change

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Article about human and biophysical processes that add to environmental change

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https://www.geogspace.edu.au/verve/_resources/2.4.4.3_2_causes_env_change.pdf

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this will help on the effect of climate change in the amazon.

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A changing Amazon?

As habitat destruction trends interact with climate change, the concern is that the Amazon will be caught up in a set of "feedback loops" that could dramatically speed up the pace of forest lost and degradation and bring the Amazon Biome to a point of no return. This threshold, also referred to as a tipping point, may occur when Amazonian forests die and are progressively replaced by fireprone brush and savanna (ecological tipping point), and rainfall is inhibited on a regional scale (climatic tipping point).

The climate and deforestation-driven substitution of forests to savanna-like and semiarid vegetation has been dubbed the Amazon forests' "die back" (Cox et al. 2000, Cox et al. 2004; Nobre et al. 1991; Oyama and Nobre 2003). While there is still debate among scientists about this concept, some climate-simulation vegetation models predict that such a die-back could occur by the end of this century.

For some scientists (Nepstad, 2008), however, this timeframe may be optimistic as these models do not include land-use change or the synergistic effects of deforestation and regional climate change. If these factors were taken into account, we could face a dire scenario in which current trends in livestock, agriculture, logging expansion, fire and drought could destroy or severely damage 55% of the Amazon rainforest by the year 2030 (Nepstad 2008).

Soil moisture in the Amazon

Soil moisture levels across the Amazon during four periods of severe drought. (Nepstad, 2008).

Rainforests taken over by savannas?

With modelling studies projecting a warmer and drier environment for the Amazon, climate change paints a bleak future for the region - a future where both people and biodiversity stand to lose.

Well tuned, the Amazon's hydrological engine plays a major role in maintaining the global and regional climate.

Water released by plants into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration (evaporation and plant transpiration) and to the ocean by the rivers, influences world climate and the circulation of ocean currents. This works as a feedback mechanism, as the process also sustains the regional climate on which it depends.

What is happening in the Amazon?

But scientists are noticing something disturbing in the Amazon rainforest - the hydrological engine is beginning to fail. Two major factors are at play.

One factor is the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a climatic phenomenon which influences much of the climatic variability in Latin America. Although ENSO events are a natural occurrence, human-induced climate change is expected to increase their frequency in the future.

ENSO is associated with dry conditions in northeast Brazil, the northern Amazon, the Peruvian-Bolivian Altiplano, and Pacific coast of Central America. Meanwhile, southern Brazil and northwestern Peru have exhibited unusually wet conditions during ENSO events.

Another factor is deforestation, which in addition to removing forest cover causes a dramatic change in rainfall patterns and distribution. These findings imply that current deforestation in the Amazon has already altered the regional climate. They also support previous reports of increased shallow cloudiness over deforested areas.

Worrying climatic prospects for the Amazon

Climate change and deforestation could convert the majority of the Amazon rainforest into savanna, with massive impacts on the world's biodiversity and climate.

Guardian: Amazon could shrink by 85% due to climate change, scientists say

NPR: A Drying Amazon Could Speed Climate Change

The long-term weather forecast for the Amazon

Models suggest that by the year 2050, temperatures in the Amazon will increase by 2-3°C. At the same time, a decrease in rainfall during dry months will lead to widespread drying.

There are serious consequences to these changes. Projected increases of temperatures and decreased rainfall during already dry months could result in longer and perhaps more severe droughts, along with substantial changes in seasonality.

What should we expect?

Coupled with land-use changes, we can expect the degradation of freshwater systems, loss of ecologically and agriculturally valuable soils, increased erosion, decreased agricultural yields, increased insect infestation, and spread of infectious diseases.

The changing nature of the Amazon

Over time, global climate change and more deforestation will likely lead to increased temperatures and changing rain patterns in the Amazon, which will undoubtedly affect the region's forests, water availability, biodiversity, agriculture, and human health.

Between 30% and 60% of the Amazon rainforest could become a dry savanna

Research carried out under the auspices of INPE - Brazil's National Space Research Institute - shows that a warmer and drier environment for the region could convert from 30% up to 60% of the Amazon rainforest into a type of dry savanna.

A closer look at the impacts of climate change on...

We are running a serious risk of losing a large piece of the Amazonian tropical forest. If warming exceeds a few degrees Celsius, the process of 'savannisation' may well become irreversible.

The carbon dioxide factor

There are concerns that the Amazon region could become a net source rather than a sink (storage) of carbon dioxide (CO ₂), a gas emitted mainly from burning fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas - and the major driver for global climate change.

Currently, the Amazon rainforests are still a sink for CO ₂, despite some 20% of CO ₂ emissions globally arising from deforestation. However, it is projected that increased temperatures, decreased precipitation and the 'savannization' of the Amazon will cause the region to become a source of CO ₂, instead of a sink.

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As habitat destruction trends interact with climate change, the concern is that the Amazon will be caught up in a set of "feedback loops" that could dramatically speed up the pace of forest lost and degradation and bring the Amazon Biome to a point of no return.

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http://wwf.panda.org/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/amazon_threats/climate_change_amazon/

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1523-1739.2001.01093.x

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2791614/