Deforested areas of the Amazon Basin have a limited ability to recover because of recent changes in climate, a study shows.
Deforested areas of the Amazon Basin have a limited ability to recover because of recent changes in climate, a study shows.
Limited growth in a drier climate has restricted the amount of carbon that new trees can lock away from the atmosphere, reducing their ability to counteract the effects of global warming.
Forests replanted today would likely be able to recapture only two-thirds of the carbon that they have lost to the atmosphere in the past 20 years through deforestation and climate change, researchers say.
The findings could inform conservation strategies, including goals set out in the Paris Agreement, in which many countries have committed to reforestation.
Read more at University of Edinburgh
Photo credit: Expedition 40 crew via Wikimedia Commons
