The Amazon region is a global hotspot of biodiversity and plays a key role in the climate system because of its ability to store large amounts of carbon and its influence on the global water cycle.
The Amazon region is a global hotspot of biodiversity and plays a key role in the climate system because of its ability to store large amounts of carbon and its influence on the global water cycle. The rain forest is threatened, however, by climate change as well as by intensified deforestation activities. An international team of researchers that includes scientists from MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, the Faculty of Geosciences, and the Institute of Environmental Physics of the University of Bremen, have investigated how a change in Atlantic circulation would impact the Amazon Rain Forest. Their results were now published in Nature Geoscience journal.
The Earth’s climate system is highly complex and its components, which include the ocean, atmosphere, and vegetation, are closely interlinked. Changes in individual parameters can have far-reaching effects on the entire system. To a certain extent, the individual components of the system are resilient and can absorb changes. Climate and Earth-system research, however, assume that there are various tipping points. If these are exceeded, the climate system can change its state within a short period of time. It is also presumed that tipping points in the climate system influence each other and can trigger chain reactions, or cascades.
Among the global tipping points are the Amazon rainforest and the large-scale Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Further warming of the planet can lead to a significant weakening of the AMOC. This would slow down the conveyor belt that transports warm water to the northern regions, drastically changing the temperature distribution in the Atlantic. This would also have consequences for the Amazon region because the altered temperatures in the Atlantic would affect the atmospheric water cycle, and thus also the patterns and amounts of precipitation.
Read more at MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen
Image: The Amazon rainforest and the Amazon region are ecosystems that react to changing patterns of precipitation. Photo: Thomas Akabane, University of São Paulo (Credit: Thomas Akabane, University of São Paulo)
