The Amazon rainforest has had a fair amount of time for this over the years, and the next century doesn’t seem to be showing much of a peach. Recent research has shown that regions without precipitation will face the ultimate drought risk for the next hundred years if measures are not taken to prevent climate change, much higher than previously thought. Previous climate models have contradicted each other on whether the Amazon will become wet or dry in the coming years, a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Studies, in favor of the latter results.
Researchers have predicted a decrease in rainfall compared to 2005 rainfall and a major drought in 2010, which has severely damaged trees and killed people. To achieve this conclusion, the team led by Dr. Jessica Baker of the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment examined the relationship between precipitation and evaporation – the transfer of water from the medium to the atmosphere – in 38 Amazon climate models. They found that only one-third of these models accurately represented the interaction and were able to reject other, unrealistic, models by reducing uncertainty by half of the precipitation forecast.
This has allowed Amazon to make much more accurate predictions of rainfall than ever before; Severe drought is forecast in the eastern Amazon by 2100, but rainfall is expected to increase in the west. Over the years, evaporative control elements have also been observed to develop, the authors write, “reducing climate stability and putting the region at risk for further change”. Baker said in a statement, “This new study sheds light on how Amazon’s climate is likely to change with extreme warming.” “Preserving and expanding existing forests – which absorb and conserve carbon – is critical to the fight against climate change.”
The Amazon Basin plays an important role in the world’s carbon and water cycles. If drying occurs as predicted in this study, the global effects could be huge. Thanks to Forest Upstream, Amazon has already released more carbon dioxide than it exploited between 2010 and 2019. And now the expected drought from this new information will result in the release of large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and will create a vicious cycle of climate change.
