Amazon rainforest shows signs of slower recovery after more frequent droughts since 2015
Date
5/23/2024 4:42:56 AM
(MENAFN) According to a recent study conducted by scientists from Belgium's KU Leuven University, the Amazon rainforest has shown signs of slower recovery following more frequent droughts since 2015. However, despite this observation, the rainforest still exhibits remarkable resilience.
"Since the turn of the century, four extreme droughts have occurred in the Amazon rainforest. Droughts of that kind should normally occur only once per century. This shows an evident increase of droughts in the largest rainforest on our planet," a statement by the university noted.
The researchers utilized monthly satellite imagery spanning from 2001 to 2019 in their study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal. Their aim was "to determine how the vegetation reacts to repeated periods of drought."
"The color of the tree canopy can give us information about the health and resilience of the forest. The color always changes throughout the seasons. But if over the course of the years, the trees need more and more time to recover, then something else is at play. In this case, we talk about a 'critical slowing down,' which could mean that the ecosystem is about to reach a tipping point towards large-scale forest dieback and would eventually change into a degraded system with less diversity and complexity," the statement quoted Prof. Ben Somers as stating.
The findings of the research suggest that, at present, the Amazon rainforest "is not yet going to reach this kind of tipping point" for the time being.
Additionally, the scientists uncovered that "mainly the intensity and duration of the drought periods led to forest degradation, more than the number of drought periods."
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