Climate change: the Amazon is in mortal danger and could disappear by 2050

Half of the Amazon could suffer irreversible alterations and even disappear by 2050, concludes an international team of researchers after evaluating the critical thresholds that can cause profound changes in the region and push the largest tropical forest in the world to a point of “no return” that will impact the global climate Land.

The results of the work, led by the Federal University of Santa Catalina (Brazil) and in which experts from the Spanish Higher Scientific Research Council (CSIC) participated, appear today in the magazine Natureand among the most alarming conclusions one stands out: two of these thresholds, those corresponding to the levels of deforestation and degradation of the Amazon forest, have already been exceeded.

The potential alterations will depend on five main factors – the increase in temperature; the decrease in precipitation; the increase in the dry season; the intensity of the seasonality of the rains; and deforestation – all directly or indirectly related to climate change, and crossing the tipping point in each of them can cause local and systematic changes in the Amazon.

But the researchers stressed that the disappearance of the Amazon forests would influence the planet’s climate regulation, as well as the loss of biological and cultural diversity at a global level.

The work carried out by the scientists, coordinated by the Brazilian Bernardo Flores, is the result of the first scientific report on this region, which was launched at the Glasgow COP in 2021 at the request of the Scientific Panel for the Amazonan initiative sponsored by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Negative thresholds already exceeded

The report places as a turning point a deforestation accumulated of 20%, and the research team established the “safe limit” at 10%, although it has already exceeded 13%.

It also points out that the critical threshold for global average temperature increase is 2 degrees, and establishes 1.5 degrees as a safe limit for the Amazon forest; and in terms of reducing rainfall, the turning point is 1,000 liters per square meter annually, and sets 1,800 liters as a safe limit.

The researchers also warned that the deficit of 450 liters per square meter of rain per year should not be exceeded in the dry season periods, in this case they have established 350 liters as a safe limit; and they marked the limit duration that the dry season should have: the “critical threshold” in eight months and the “safe limit” in five, the CSIC reported in a press release released this Wednesday.

The team included twenty researchers from European and American research centers and universities, among them the scientist Encarnación Montoya, from the Barcelona Geosciences Institute (northeast) (GEO3BCN-CSIC), who highlighted the relevance of this work to understand how close or far that is the largest continuous tropical forest on the planet to exceed safety limits.

Montoya warned of the “cascade effect,” and how one factor, deforestation, can increase the negative power of the others, since half of the rainfall recorded in the Amazon basin comes from water recycled naturally in the same basin.

The researcher referred to the Amazon forests as the “refrigerators” of the planet and as gigantic sinks of the carbon dioxide -main responsible for climate change-, and warned that their degradation will prevent them from continuing to act as “a water pump” on the one hand and as a “sucker” of carbon dioxide on the other, which would increase the effects of climate change. .

Indigenous people, the best protectors of the ecosystem

The researcher stressed the loss of biological and cultural diversity that the disappearance of the Amazon forests implies, not only because of the role of “climate regulator” that they play on the planet, also because in the Amazon 42 million people reside there, including 2.2 million indigenous and local communities who belong to some 400 different ethnicities and cultures.

“They are the watchmen; They are the ones who have traditional knowledge; “They live, know and use the Amazon forests sustainably,” stated the Spanish researcher, and observed that they cannot be left out of management, because the Amazon system is made up of nine geographical borders and nine countries with different governments.

“If people are not involved, good results will not be achieved, because indigenous populations are the main protectors of the Amazon forest,” he said.

The researchers appeal in Nature to local and international responsibility to reduce potential negative consequences and prevent the disappearance of the Amazon.

And they highlight the importance of promoting the participation of indigenous governance territories in decision-making, as well as adopting traditional practices, since protected areas, and especially territories governed by indigenous people, are often better preserved spaces.

Researchers confirm in Nature that the Amazon rainforest is home to 10 percent of the biodiversity of the planet, stores carbon equivalent to about 20 years of Earth’s emissions and is responsible for a net cooling effect that helps stabilize the global climate.

To reach their conclusions, the scientists used historical records (spanning about 65 million years), climate models and observational data from the last forty years – satellite observations of the spread of forest fires, tree cover or deforestation. .