Earth Equity News

Amazonian Rainforest at Risk of Catastrophic Destruction. By Lewis Smith, London Times, March 12, 2009. "The Amazonian rainforest is likely to suffer catastrophic damage, even with the lowest temperature rises forecast under climate change, researchers have decided. The damage will be so severe that it will cause irreversible changes to the world's weather patterns, which is expected to bring more storms, floods and heat waves to Britain. Up to 40 per cent of the rainforest will be lost if temperature rises are restricted to 2C, which most climatologists regard as the least that can be expected by 2050. Climate change researchers issued the assessment of the forest's fragility after discovering a time-lag in the effects of temperature rises on the forest. It had previously been thought that the trees and other vegetation, and the vast range of animals living among them, would be safe if temperatures rose no more than 2C. Researchers have now found that even 2C will destroy large tracts of the forest but that the die-back is slow and will take up to a century to have its full effect. A 3C rise is likely to result in 75 per cent of the forest disappearing and a 4C rise, regarded as the most likely increase this century unless greenhouse gas emissions are greatly reduced, will kill off 85 per cent of the forest. Chris Jones, of the Met Office Hadley Centre in Exeter, told a scientific conference in Copenhagen [the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change] that the time delay had masked the full impact of temperature rises."