An Amazon with less rain and more heat due to deforestation

BarcelonaThe unstoppable deforestation and the climate crisis threaten the great green lung that is still the Amazon rainforest and take her to the dreaded point of no return in recovery andpush towards savannization. That is to say, there is a danger that the rich diversity of vegetation and climate in the American region will become a vast expanse of semi-arid land filled with scrubland. In a new study published this Tuesday by the journal Nature Communication, an international team of researchers has found that there is another factor to consider when adding more concern about the future of the Amazon: rainfall.

Based on 35 years of observation and analysis (between 1985 and 2020) of the climatic behavior of the administrative region of the Brazilian Amazon (which occupies 60% of the country's surface), the researchers reveal that it rains less in areas where deforestation is most intensive. The situation is especially pronounced during the dry season, when indiscriminate and extensive logging reduces rainfall by up to 74%, which is equivalent to about 15.8 mm less in these dry months. In contrast, the maximum temperature during the same period studied has risen by 16.5%, already increasing by around 2°C in the last decade.

Rainfall is decreasing, according to the research, because deforestation "disrupts the natural modulation of water and energy cycles," while surface temperatures rise. The equation of fewer trees, less rain, and more heat results in a catastrophic increase in the presence of greenhouse gases, which are disrupting the lives of both the Amazonian systems and the population of the region and the entire planet.

Although the researchers are cautious about passing a death sentence on the Amazon, they do insist that with current trends, the region is likely to lose its rainforest and move closer to a drier climate, similar to that of the Cerrado or even the semi-arid region. In fact, they point out that if current deforestation rates continue, in ten years the region will experience a temperature increase of 2.64 ºC and a reduction in rainfall of 28.3 millimeters per dry season compared to 1985.

Conserve the forest

This conversion would entail the destruction of the region's wildlife, vegetation, and way of life. The solution, according to the researchers, involves urgently ending logging and preserving the forest cover that can still be salvaged from the extractive industry. In this regard, they assert that the most severe climate degradation occurs in the early stages of deforestation, when it is lost.between 10% and 40% of the forests".

With an area of five million square kilometers (half the area of Europe) that covers several countries, the Amazon is the largest rainforest on Earth, and the fact that it is losing its capacity to oxygenate due to the constant loss of trees thus dilutes the great green lung of the planet.