Drought, forest fires turn Amazon into a source of carbon emissions

Prolonged drought with widespread forest fires is reducing the carbon uptake of the world's largest rainforest. Not only that, Amazon is also at risk of turning into a source of carbon emissions harmful to the environment instead of a place to absorb carbon. This is the conclusion of a new study published in the journal Nature.

Using the image of the Amazon forest in four different locations taken from planes twice a week for a period of two years, the international team found that in the rainy years, the Amazon forests were all reached a carbon neutral state, however, in the dry years, they became a source of carbon emissions due to slow growth of trees and wildfires.

Amazon rainforest (Photo: rainforests.mongabay.com)

'Amazon is changing when there are more extremely wet and extremely dry years. If this trend continues, Amazon may become a source of carbon emissions, abetting climate change instead of acting as a carbon sink as before ' - John Miller of the Institute for Scientific Research Cooperation Study Environment (CIRES) expressed concern.

The reason why the research team chose in 2010 and 2011 to follow is because 2010 was a harsh year of drought in the Amazon forest, and 2011 was a rainy, wet year. This is also the first time the team surveyed the carbon balance across the entire basin for two consecutive dry and wet years.

In 2010, Amazon forest fires made about 500 million tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, about 200 million tons more than in 2011. At the same time, in 2010 the Amazon forest also absorbed less CO2 than in 2011 because of lack of water for photosynthesis.

In order to grasp whether the trend continues in this basin, co-author Luciana Gatti said that the scientific community should conduct further research and also need more long-term efforts to grasp. Fully capture the area's carbon balance status in the future.