Scientists studying the impact of record heat and drought on intact African tropical rainforests were surprised by how resilient they were to extreme conditions during the last major El Niño event.
Scientists studying the impact of record heat and drought on intact African tropical rainforests were surprised by how resilient they were to extreme conditions during the last major El Niño event.
The Leeds-led international study, reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today, found that intact rainforests across tropical Africa continued to remove carbon from the atmosphere before and during the 2015-2016 El Niño, despite the extreme heat and drought.
Tracking trees in 100 different tropical rainforests across six African countries, the researchers found that intact forests across the continent still removed 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere during the El Niño monitoring period. This rate is equivalent to three times the carbon dioxide emissions of the UK in 2019.
Read more at University of Leeds
Photo Credit: 4665562 via Pixabay
