MANAUS, Brazil: Deep in the Amazon, an experiment unfolds that may allow a peek into the future to see what would happen to the global largest rainforest when carbon dioxide levels rise.
According to Arab News, it is a simulation to see how the world’s lungs would endure international warming. Carlos Quesada, one of the project coordinators, said that the AmazonFACE project, co-financed by Brazil and the UK, is “an open-air laboratory that would allow us to understand how the rainforest would behave in future climate change scenarios.”
Quesada stands at the foot of the soaring metal tower that protrudes through the rainforest canopy at a site 50 miles north of Manaus in Brazil.
Sixteen other towers arranged in the circle around it would “pump” CO2 into the ring; replicating levels may happen with international warming.
“How will the rainforest react to the rising temperature, the reduction in water availability, in the globe with more carbon in the atmosphere?” asks Quesada, the researcher at an Amazon research institute that is part of the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology.
The FACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment) technology has already been used to study the impact on forests in Australia, the US and the Uk, but never in the tropical rainforest.
By 2024, there would be six “carbon rings” pumping CO2 — one of the causes of international warming — at a concentration 40 per cent to 50 per cent higher than today.
Over a decade, researchers would analyze the processes occurring in leaves, soil, roots, water and nutrient cycles.
David Lapola, a researcher at the University of Campinas, said, “We’ve more accurate projections on how the Amazon rainforest can support combat climate change with its ability to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Also, it would support us in understanding how these changes would impact the rainforest.”
