For years, climate scientists have sounded the alarm about the growing likelihood that the Amazon rainforest, now one of the world’s largest carbon sinks, could actually to become a source of carbon into the only 15 years old. New research shows that for other types of nearby rainforests, this is already happening.
This is largely due to the deliberate burning of forests. In South America, mining, cattle raising and soybean cultivation often set trees on fire to make way for their operations, turning forests into open pastures.
This means that forests contain less foliage to inhale greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. To make matters worse, when a tree catches fire, it releases all the carbon it has seized during its lifetime, which means that forests become a source of global warming emissions. And against the background of the climate crisis, this problem is even more severe, because in warmer and drier conditions, forests do not produce enough moisture to quickly extinguish the flames, which means that it burns more areas with less effort.
A new study, published in Science Advances on Friday, aimed to see how the carbon intake of South American forests has changed in recent years. To do this, the authors analyzed greenhouse gas monitoring data from 1987 to 2020 on 32 deciduous, semi-deciduous and evergreen forests – each of which has seen deforestation – in the lush state of Minas Gerais. Gerais in southeastern Brazil. In total, the area they examined covered an area of 33 hectares.
By linking these data to statistical models, the authors found that, on average, these forests now absorb 2.6% less carbon per year than they did 33 years ago. At the same time, the carbon production of forest fires has increased by 3.4% per year, which means that they generally lose their ability to absorb gas. These changes were enough to push forests over the edge from carbon sinks to carbon sources. The authors fear that their findings could be extrapolated to tropical forests in the region as a whole.
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The data show that the change took place in 2013. In that year, the forests examined released 0.14 US tons per 2.5 acres (0.13 metric tons of carbon per hectare), or the equivalent production to drive 323 miles in a diesel car.
The authors’ findings are particularly worrying because separate research recently found that the importance of carbon sequestration in tropical forests is almost as important as the Amazon rainforest.
Scientists notice that all is not lost. We should eliminate the pressure on these forests by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, thus slowing down the climate crisis. Brazil should also restore the carbon sinking capabilities of these forests, protecting forests by stopping arson.
“The key is conservation,” Vinícius Maia, a researcher at the Federal University of Lavras in Brazil, wrote in an e-mail.
The authors say that special efforts should be made to preserve deciduous forests, which are the driest and warmest types that researchers have examined and seen an even greater increase in carbon emissions. But, indeed, these protections should extend to all the leaves in the area.