Amazon Rainforest Reaching Tipping Point

Table of Contents

Amazon rainforest UPSC: Relevance

GS 3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

According to a new study, above 75% of the Amazon rainforest is heading towards a tipping point since the 2000s.

अमेज़ॅन वर्षावन अस्थिर बिंदु तक पहुंच रहे हैं

Using the satellite data, researchers found that the forest might be losing its ability to bounce back from extreme events such as drought or fire, threatening to become a dry savanna-like ecosystem.
The transition could have a negative impact on the forest as it could alter its rich biodiversity, carbon-storing potential and global climate change.
The study showed that the indicators of tipping points go up faster in areas with less rainfall and closer to human land use.

The Amazon’s rainforest has around 30 per cent of the world’s species, comprising 40,000 plant species, 16,000 tree species, 1,300 birds and more than 430 species of mammals.
Trees of amazon take up water through the roots, release it into the atmosphere, and influence precipitation over whole of South America.
The rainforest is also a carbon sink and thus plays an essential role in combating climate change.

Deforestation: According to reports, deforestation totalled 430 square kilometres in January 2022, five times higher than the same month last year.
This loss of trees will significantly impact the rainfall in the continent.
Increasing temperatures: Increasing temperatures due to human-induced climate change is pushing the rainforest to transform into a carbon source, from the carbon sink.
The researchers were of the view that the forests could release vast amounts of CO2 if they partially transform into dry habitats.
Human land-use activities: Practices like direct removal of trees, construction of roads, and fires are on the rise since 2010, which is also worsening the situation.

Scientists warn that decades of human activity and a changing climate has brought the jungle near a “tipping point.”
Experts also warn that the water cycle will soon become irreversibly broken, locking in a trend of declining rainfall and longer dry seasons that began decades ago.
At least half of the shrinking forest will give way to savanna.
With as much as 17% of the forest lost already, scientists believe that the tipping point will be reached at 20% to 25% of deforestation even if climate change is tamed.
If global temperatures rise by 4°C, much of the central, eastern and southern Amazon will certainly become barren scrubland.
If things continue as they are now, the Amazon might not exist at all within a few generations, with dire consequences for all life on earth.
If the Amazon is destroyed, it will be impossible to control global warming.

Reducing deforestation and limiting the global greenhouse gases will protect the forest’s threatened parts and boost Amazon rainforest resilience.

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