Climate Change Has Driven the Amazon Rainforest to the Edge of a "Tipping Point"

Climate Change Has Driven the Amazon Rainforest to the Edge of a "Tipping Point"

It's at risk of turning into a "savanna-like environment."

Dried Up Husk

The famously verdant Amazon rainforest is in danger of transforming into a dry savannah as various environmental indicators, such as deforestation and climate change, are pushing the ecosystem to a dangerous tipping point, according to new research.

In a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, as spotted by Live Science, a team of European scientists made a computer model of one area of the vast forest, which totals at a staggering 2.3 million square miles, and observed what would happen if they increased the deforestation rate and temperatures to mimic global warming.

"We are reasonably confident that such a shift is possible," coauthor and University of Cambridge professor Andrew Friend told Live Science. "The question is what degree of climate change and/or deforestation will cause the system to change."

The team used their computer model to simulate an average patch of the forest to see what would be "the tipping point" for a drastic transformation.

The results were stark: Just a ten percent reduction in precipitation from the Atlantic Ocean, or a more than 65 percent destruction, can push the rainforest into an inexorable path towards "a drier savanna-like environment," according to the paper.

Amazon Crime

The Amazon rainforest is typically described as the world's lungs because it sucks up carbon emissions and expels oxygen from its vast quantity of plants and trees.

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