“But we are doing the opposite – we are accelerating climate change.” “Imagine if we could prohibit fires in the Amazon – it could be a carbon sink,” said Gatti. Denning said: “They’re complementary studies with radically different methods that come to very similar conclusions.” Research that tracked 300,000 trees over 30 years, published in 2020, showed tropical forests were taking up less CO2 than before. This is bad – having the most productive carbon absorber on the planet switch from a sink to a source means we have to eliminate fossil fuels faster than we thought.”Ī satellite study published in April found the Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed. “In the south-east, the forest is no longer growing faster than it’s dying. Prof Scott Denning, at Colorado State University, said the aerial research campaign was heroic. The south-east Amazon sink-to-source story is yet another stark warning that climate impacts are accelerating.” “Now we have good evidence this is happening. “The positive feedback, where deforestation and climate change drive a release of carbon from the remaining forest that reinforces additional warming and more carbon loss is what scientists have feared would happen,” he said. “Flying every two weeks and keeping consistent laboratory measurements for nine years is an amazing feat.” “This is a truly impressive study,” said Prof Simon Lewis, from University College London. The 1bn tonnes left in the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.
It found fires produced about 1.5bn tonnes of CO2 a year, with forest growth removing 0.5bn tonnes. The research, published in the journal Nature, involved taking 600 vertical profiles of CO2 and carbon monoxide, which is produced by the fires, at four sites in the Brazilian Amazon from 2010 to 2018.
Some European nations have said they will block an EU trade deal with Brazil and other countries unless Bolsonaro agrees to do more to tackle Amazonian destruction. “We need a global agreement to save the Amazon,” Gatti said. Much of the timber, beef and soy from the Amazon is exported from Brazil. The second bad news is that the places where deforestation is 30% or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20%.”įewer trees meant less rain and higher temperatures, making the dry season even worse for the remaining forest, she said: “We have a very negative loop that makes the forest more susceptible to uncontrolled fires.” Luciana Gatti, at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil and who led the research, said: “The first very bad news is that forest burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs. The government of Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been harshly criticised for encouraging more deforestation, which has surged to a 12-year high, while fires hit their highest level in June since 2007. The trees produce much of the region’s rain, so fewer trees means more severe droughts and heatwaves and more tree deaths and fires. They said it was most likely the result of each year’s deforestation and fires making adjacent forests more susceptible the next year. The scientists said the discovery that part of the Amazon was emitting carbon even without fires was particularly worrying.
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