New evidence from advanced statistical analysis of satellite data recently suggested that the Amazon rainforest is possibly losing resilience.
This, a EurekAlert! report specified, is because of stress from a "combination of logging and burning," the effect of human-caused climate change, is not clearly identifiable thus far, although it will possibly matter significantly in the future.
For approximately three-quarters of the forest, the ability to recover from worry has been declining since the early 2000s, which scientists are seeing as a warning sign. This new evidence has resulted from advanced statistical analysis of satellite data of changes in "vegetation biomass and productivity."
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Officials from Para State, northern Brazil, inspect a deforested area in the Amazon rainforest during surveillance in the municipality of Pacaja, 620 km from the capital Belem.
Increased Risk of 'Dieback' of the Amazon Forest
According to Niklas Boers from the Postdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Technology University of Munich, decreased resilience, the ability to recover from perturbations like fires or droughts can mean a heightened risk of "dieback of the Amazon rainforest."
Boers, who performed the research jointly with researchers from the University of Exeter, United Kingdom also said, that they see such a resilience loss in observations as worrying.
He added the Amazon rainforest is home to a distinctive host of biodiversity, robustly influences rainfall in entire South America by way of its massive evapotranspiration, and stores great amounts of carbon that could be emitted as greenhouse gases in the case of "even partial dieback," in turn adding to further global warming.
This is the reason the rainforest is of worldwide significance. When the tipping itself becomes observable, "it would be too late," he explained.
Potential 'Tipping Element' in the Earth System
Essentially, Amazon is regarded as a potential tipping element in the Earth system, and a number of studies showed its susceptibility. Nonetheless, Boers said, "computer simulation studies of its future" are producing a range of outcomes. He added they have therefore been linking into particular observational data for indications of resilience changes during the past decades.
The team is seeing continuously dropping resilience in the rainforest since the beginning of the 2000s, although they cannot tell when a possible transition from rainforest to savanna might take place.
When it becomes observable, it would possibly be too late to prevent it, continued Boers. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, is part of the project dubbed Tipping Points in the Earth System or TiPES, financially backed by the European Union's Horizon 2020 program.
Stability After Perturbation
The research team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Global Systems Institute of the University of Exeter utilized stability indicators that had formerly already been applied to the Greenland ice sheet, as well as the Atlantic capsizing circulation.
Such statistical indicators aim at forecasting the method of a system towards a sudden change by determining a critical slowing down of the dynamics of a system, for example, its reaction to weather unpredictability. Examination of the two satellite data sets, demonstrating biomass and the forest's greenness revealed the critical slowing down.
This critical slowing down can be observed as a weakening of the restoring forces that typically return the system to its stability following perturbations, a similar Mantra report said.
Related report about the Amazon rainforest is shown on News Time's YouTube video below:
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