Amazon under Threat from Cleaner Air
If anyone ever thought climate sciences were anything but complex, they obviously weren’t looking hard enough. Recent research from prominent UK and Brazilian climate scientists have found a link between reducing sulphur dioxide emissions from burning coal, and the increase in sea surface temperatures in the tropical north Atlantic, that heightens the risk of drought in the Amazon rainforest.
The Amazon is without a doubt one of the planet’s most valuable and important ecological resources; and not for logging. The rainforest contains approximately one tenth of the total carbon stored in land ecosystems, and recycles much of the rain that falls upon its leafy canopy.
Thus, any major change to its vegetation has massive implications for the global climate system.
