Fourty percent or more of the Amazon rainforest will be “decimated” by the middle of the next century even if we cut all CO2 emissions by 2050, said the UK Met Office. The finding was presented this past month in Copenhagen, which is preparing to host the UN Climate Change Conference in December.
In this satellite image of deforestation in Brazil, tropical rainforest appears bright red, while pale red and brown areas represent cleared land. Black and gray areas have probably been recently burned.
Human-driven deforestation (measured by a net decrease in tree density) will occur even in the absence of a 3° Celsius or more increase in global, average temperature, which is what many scientists believe to be necessary for rain forest loss to pass a “tipping point”.
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Tropical rain forests promote ‘evapotranspiration’ clouds which trap moisture near the surface, and help maintain relatively cooler, lower atmospheric temperatures (preventing much direct sunlight from reaching the ground). This cloud cover creates a “protective zone” between the ground and itself, which in turn, promotes more rain forest growth (and more CO2 absorption). The rain forest and its evapotranspirative cloud covering are “structurally coupled” (mutually dependent and reinforcing). But rain forest loss cuts into this protective and self-perpetuating activity, increasing local temperatures and the rate of evaporation (which is related to the amount of vapor pressure, which increases with temperature), causing a net loss in surface moisture (denying the forest’s ability to reconstitute), and can lead to an increase in detrimental effects like desertification. Many climate scientists have held that as long as temperatures remained below 3° Celsius, this forest decimation trend could be mitigated, and thus the impact on the global climate would not be as severe.
But this most recent climate model, if it is validated through follow up studies, may be an indication that the Amazonian Rain Forest is already locked into an irreversible trend, regardless of what humans do now to mitigate it. Critics say that the model fails to reproduce the current climate exactly, but supporters argue that the model closely replicates 20th Century Rain forest patterns.
Presiding over this month’s Copenhagen meeting was the Danish Prime Minister Anders Rasmussen who took an active part in the proceeding by asking key climate questions of conference panel scientists. Many questions left unanswered by the last IPCC (the UN sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report of April, 2007 were addressed at the conference, chief of which was the question of whether or not the Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets were experiencing a net loss of ice mass. The last IPCC report left this issue unresolved due to a lack (at the time) of hard data on glacial movement.
Other ‘Worst Case’ Climate Change Scenarios Being Realized
Since 2007, recently completed global research projects such as the International Polar Year (see my recent article: Major Studies Reveal State of the Poles), have produced far more compelling evidence that there is, in fact, a net loss of ice mass occurring in these regions. Using this data, recent climate models produced by University of Bristol (UK) researchers show that although a complete disintegration of the Greenland ice mass would require a warming of at least 6° Celsius, a mere 15% loss of ice mass would be sufficient to raise sea levels by 1 meter–a “horrendous prospect” according to lead scientist Jonathan Bamber.
Other issues discussed at the conference included: calculating the risk of massive CO2 release due to the loss or destruction of natural carbon storage “sinks”, such as permafrost, soils, and plants. According to the most recent calculations, the sub-arctic permafrost is preventing 1.7 trillion tons of stored carbon–double the 2007 IPCC estimate–from being released into the atmosphere. Computer modeling of this effect is still quite tenuous and tricky (due to many interacting factors), but this possibility only adds to the challenge of controlling CO2 emissions. Climate scientists are especially concerned about certain types of soil components known as yedoma sediments which are high in methane (30%), a potent greenhouse gas, which, in the upper atmosphere, also destroys ozone (O3). Researchers also tackled theoretical speculation regarding increased CO2 absorption by forests and plants.
“The worst case IPCC projections, or even worse, are being realized,” said Katherine Richardson, oceanographer and Copenhagen Climate Conference co-chair in a March 26 Science Magazine news report.
Climate researchers also cited a lack of evidence supporting the theory that forests respond naturally to increase atmospheric CO2 by increasing their photosynthetic uptake of the gas. Last month’s Copenhagen meeting was convened by 11universities from the UK, Australia, the U.S. and Europe. While there was no complete consensus on each and every issue, participating scientists were generally in accord on certain questions (such as ice mass loss) and the need to for dramatic caps on CO2 emissions. The aim of the conference was to get a firmer grip on the science constituting climate science before delegates meet in Copenhagen again this December (COP15) to work on a follow-up to the 1997 Kyoto Accords.
About the photo: Extensive deforestation and fragmentation are visible in this satellite image, acquired by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on August 24, 2000, of the state of Rondonia, Brazil, along the Jiparaná River. Tropical rainforest appears bright red, while pale red and brown areas represent cleared land. Black and gray areas have probably been recently burned. The Jiparaná River appears blue. Photo credit: NASA and the U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team via Visible Earth.
An increase in climate control has caused tree density to decrease. This seems to be what causes rain forests to decline. Rain forests are important for our planet because, for one they supply a large amount of oxygen, and two they create protective ozone. According to Michele from eco worldly, “Tropical rain forests promote ‘evapotranspiration’ clouds which trap moisture near the surface, and help maintain relatively cooler, lower atmospheric temperatures.” These clouds are the protective ozone which decreases the intensity of the sun. If the rain forests decline, we would be in real trouble. A recent study suggests that no matter what is done the ozone will decline forty percent by 2050. Someone needs start thinking fast on how to fix this issue before it happens. There usually always is a way to fix something; it just is a matter of finding it on time. The only way I could think of resolving this issue is to enriched the earth with fertilizer and then throw seeds at mass quantities. I saw something like this on discovery channel and it was interesting. They were still experimenting, but if it ends up working it will be great.
Sorry, but the Amazon rainforest is toast much earlier than the middle of the next century:
Here is what Climate Code Red says:
–Human emissions have so far produced a global average temperature increase of 0.8 degree C.
–There is another 0.6 degree C. to come due to “thermal inertia”, or lags in the system, taking the total long-term global warming induced by human emissions so far to 1.4 degree C.
–If human total emissions continue as they are to 2030 (and don’t increase 60% as projected) this would likely add more than 0.4 degrees C. to the system in the next two decades, taking the long-term effect by 2030 to at least 1.7 degrees C. (A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007).
–Then add the 0.3 degree C. albedo flip effect from the now imminent loss of the Arctic sea ice, and the rise in the system by 2030 is at least 2 degree. C, assum ing very optimistically that emissions don’t increase at all above their present annual rate! When we consider the potential permafrost releases and the effect of carbon sinks losing capacity, we are on the road to a hellish future, not for what we will do, but WHAT WE HAVE ALREADY DONE.
“Leemans and Eickhout (2004) found that adaptive capacity decreases rapidly with an increasing rate of climate change. Their study finds that five percent of all ecosystems cannot adapt more quickly than 0.1 C per decade over time. Forests will be among the ecosystems to experience problems first because their ability to migrate to stay within the climate zone they are adapted to is limited. If the rate is 0.3 C per decade, 15 percent of ecosystems will not be able to adapt. If the rate should exceed 0.4 C per decade, all ecosystems will be quickly destroyed, opportunistic species will dominate, and the breakdown of biological material will lead to even greater emissions of CO2. This will in turn increase the rate of warming” –Leemans and Eickhout (2004), “Another reason for concern: regional and global impacts on ecosystems for different levels of climate change,” Global Environmental Change 14, 219–228
Combining these two (“what Climate Code Red says” and “Leemans and Eickhout (2004)”): “A 0.3 degree C. increase is predicted for the period 2004-2014 alone by Smith, Cusack et al, 2007″ and “…five percent of all ecosystems cannot adapt more quickly than 0.1 C per decade over time. Forests will be among the ecosystems to experience problems first because their ability to migrate to stay within the climate zone they are adapted to is limited.”
Sorry, but the Amazon rainforest is toast much earlier than the middle of the next century.
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No offense, but these kinds of exaggerations & over-drmatizations don’t sell me on the idea of manmade destruction. We live in an evolving world with evolving climate changes throughout human history. I have always been skeptical of these scare tactics, the chicken-little syndrome. Eco-terrorist types have always taken an inch and tried to gain a mile with total misrepresentations. We’re not buying it after 40 years so what makes them think we’ll buy it now? Nothing, except a new generation of blowhards selling the same snakeoil. I have no doubt things are changing.. hence, the Grand Canyon, Mammoth Cave, other ecological wonders. I’ve been to China. In 1992/93 I couldn’t breathe (and many times couldn’t see more than 1/4 mile ahead) because of the total unregulated pollution belching 24/7 from their factories. I can only imagine India is just as bad. Until those two developing nations curtail ecological abuses, we gain little in the West except perpetual guilt trips from eco-terrorists who forecast worst case scenarios.
Sorry, Nickatthebeach, but as much as I agree that there is some alarmism and exaggeration going on, your assessment of the state of environmental research and reality is conversely, grossly simplistic and misinformed. India, by the way, is one of the least carbon intensive nations on the planet–given its population size. And China is making dramatic moves towards sustainability and the “greening” of its industrial sector (a long way to go, but still more than the US is doing).
Twenty years ago, when I was teaching natural science, and the ‘greenhouse effect” was the newest catastrophic scenario in the news, lots of folks dismissed it as left-wing/enviro fear-mongering. At that time (1986-91), we had only been collecting data since 1979, and most climate change models were rough extrapolations from the modest data. So, critics of Climate Change and global warming (or its long-term chance of severe negative feedback, i.e., a new glaciation epoch) had some traction.
But I remember saying to myself, “Well, if twenty years from now, if/when we have more data, and stronger evidence of human-augmented climate change, critics are making the SAME arguments as before, or still denying the crisis…then, it would be safe to say that they have their heads in the sand, or, are ideologically opposed/biased against eco/enviro issues, a priori.”
Sure enough, critics (reactionary ones, not sincere, scientific ones) and CC opponents are making the same arguments (with a few updated facts) and engaging in the SAME collective denial.
I suggest that you and other climate change opponents, step back, and look (or try to) at the whole picture, the global view….consider all the information that we have now (just peruse the topics on this blog alone!)…and ask your selves honestly, if there is really nothing to worry about, nothing to try and stop or mitigate over the long term…no contribution from human activity to deforestation, eco-system destruction, animal extinctions, polar ice melting, tundra thawing, disease proliferation (from unsafe, ecologically risky practices)…etc. If you can honestly say ‘No’ to all or most of these things (and all the facts/factors I forgot to mention)…then by all means, continue with your skepticism….I was a skeptic for many years (about global warming), but that was in the 1980′s. Today, there is simply too much information pointing to anthropogenic (or accelerated) climate change to comfortably stick my head back into the proverbial sand. Good luck.
The outgoing leader of Greenpeace has admitted his organization’s recent claim that the Arctic Ice will disappear by 2030 was “a mistake.”
Greenpeace made the claim in a July 15 2009 press release entitled “Urgent Action Needed As Arctic Ice Melts,” which said there will be an ice-free Arctic by 2030 because of global warming.
Under close questioning by BBC reporter Stephen Sackur on the “Hardtalk” program, Gerd Leipold, the retiring leader of Greenpeace, said the claim was wrong.
“I don’t think it will be melting by 2030. … That may have been a mistake,” he said.