Death of the Amazon Rainforest Could End the World...And It Might Be Happening Now!

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A disaster to take everyone's breath away

...a sign that severe drought is returning to the Amazon for a second successive year. And that would be ominous. New research suggests that one further dry year beyond that could tip the whole vast forest into a cycle of destruction...

The consequences would be awesome. The wet Amazon Basin would turn to dry savannah at best, desert at worst. This would cause much of the world to become hotter and drier.

In the long term, it could send global warming out of control, eventually making the world uninhabitable...

This year, says Otavio Luz Castello, the water is draining away even faster than last year - and there are still more than three months of the dry season to go.

More...

God help us.

See also: Last week Brazil's government declared a state of emergency across more than 250 towns in the region due to lack of rainfall.

I'm sad to report the forecast for the Amazon rainforest's drought will continue to escalate, since we are now entering an El Niño phase.

EL NIÑO/SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) DIAGNOSTIC DISCUSSION
CPC/NCEP - September 07, 2006

El Niño is coming! Dr. Jeff Masters - September 08, 2006

Latin America told to baton down hatches for climate change
Environmental Finance, UK August 31, 2006

For example, Brazil was hit by its first ever hurricane in March 2004, leaving 33,000 people homeless. The 2004 hurricane season caused $7.6 billion of economic damage in the region, while the 2005 season caused $5.4 billion of damage, the report says.

But it also warns that the impact of these changes will be felt across the world, as a permanent shift to seasonal "El Niño" conditions could lead to "a long-term drying out and die-off of the Amazon rainforest". This could become a "feedback mechanism", leading to catastrophic and irreversible climate change.

Flashback to El Niño 97-98:

El Niño: A Preview of Global Warming?

Overall, El Niño has a tremendous cost in South America; Peru alone anticipates more than $1.2 billion in damages. El Niño also creates dry conditions in much of the Amazon Basin worsening annual fires set by developers and peasants.

Life imitating art...

No visible means of support and you have not seen nuthin yet
Everythings stuck together
I dont know what you expect starring into the tv set
Fighting fire with fire

Burning down the house ~David Byrne

[edit on 8-9-2006 by Regenmacher]

More than half of the Earth's oxygen is from aquatic life.

Here is an interesting response from Donald Nepstad, PhD, senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, to the inaccurate article published in The Independent newspaper in August 2006 on the "expected" demise of the rain forest in Amazonia:


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Dr. Nepstad's research thus far has shown that during simulated drought conditions, big trees died more than small trees, "which was a surprise." He goes on to state the actual current thinking of his science group about Amazonia.

And here is a link to Dr. Nepstad's latest report, published in the Ecology journal. It's not too long (11 pages) but it's in PDF form so that may take awhile to load in your browser window:


ftp.whrc.org...