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Rainforests: their part in global climate change

Though there has been a lot of discussion and awareness about the deleterious effects of rainforest destruction, the true impact of such devastation has still not been fully understood by a majority of the world population. The fact that the Amazon rainforests and the savannas harbor more than seventy percent of the world flora, and are thus very crucial to planet Earth, is yet to be recognised.

As part of a new international project to save the rainforests, researchers belonging to the Leeds Earth and Biosphere Institute are studying the impact of global climate change and warming on these savannas and rainforests. They are of the opinion that the world may be witnessing the beginning of a cycle wherein global warming may be leading to the shrinkage of rainforests which in turn releases more amount of carbon into the environment. This automatically raises the temperature of the atmosphere and the cycle continues on its destructive path causing more and more virgin rainforests to disappear.

The other school of thought on this subject believes that since the primary vegetation systems within the tropics are the rainforests and savannas, any increase in the temperature leads to the invasion of the rainforests by the savannas. The fact that these savannas are almost bereft of trees makes them incapable of holding any carbon deep in the soil. Moreover, since the savannas do not follow water recycling as efficiently as the rainforests, the loss of carbon into the atmosphere is far greater and that means a drier atmosphere causing more rainforests to shrink.

The objective of the researchers is to ascertain the conditions under which these rainforests and savannas grow and survive. It appears that rainfall has nothing to do with their continued growth. While the Amazon receives annual rainfall of close to 1800mm, which is enough for the savannas to grow, the same amount of rainfall within the African plains is enough to produce the rainforests. If anything, it is the shrinkage that is occurring at a rapid rate that needs to be curtailed.

The researchers do concede that other factors such as the soil fertility and drainage may also be playing their part and will be taking actual measurements in the continents of Australia, Africa and South America. These three are the hot spots that encourage the growth of both rainforests and savannas and are therefore the focus of attention.

These measurements will be used as inputs to create sophisticated computer models that will throw up the extent of change happening in the tropical areas of the Earth. It will also give an idea of the carbon emissions, temperature changes and rainfall patterns. These findings will then be relayed back into the created models to come out with a trend and ascertain how it is going to ultimately impact any change in the global climate.

The researchers wish to allocate about five years to this study and depending on the increase in the atmospheric carbon emission levels projected; they will take a call on making a fundamental change in devising fresh targets for reduction of carbon emissions.