This water can form new rain locally or downwind in a process called moisture recycling basically forming “flying rivers,” not only stabilizing the Amazon as whole but also enabling it to extend into regions that would be too dry without this process. Usually, the trees of the Amazon transport enormous amounts of water back to the atmosphere, which they originally received as rain. “We know that reversing the Amazon forest loss becomes increasingly harder the more forest is lost, and our study shows that fire puts another lever onto this coherence."īy subscribing, you agree to receive email related to Lab Manager content and products. “It turns out, fire is the important factor for locking the Amazon in a grassland state, preventing 56-86 percent of the Amazon from regrowing, depending on the strength of climate change,” lead author Markus Drüke from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) explains.
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While naturally not occurring in rain forests, fire can play an increasing role once the forest is damaged, thinned, or completely lost, up to a status where fire is the dominating driver of the ecosystem. A new study published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment shows: Fire can be a decisive factor for a potential tipping of the Amazon rain forest, as it is capable of locking large parts of the Amazon in a treeless state. Global warming and drastic deforestation could dry out the Amazon rain forest faster and enforce the risk of keeping it downright fire-trapped.
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