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How 2˚C of warming will push most tropical rainforests above their ‘heat threshold’
May 26, 2020
Trees remove carbon from the atmosphere when they are living, but release large quantities when they die. Scientists predict that just a 2˚C could push most tropical rainforests above their safe ‘heat threshold’
As they photosynthesise and grow, tropical forests remove enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, reducing global warming. However, forests are also themselves affected by this warming. If it gets too hot or too dry, trees will grow less and may start to die faster, decomposing and releasing that carbon back into the atmosphere.
This is why scientists like us are concerned that climate change will mean death outweighs growth, and tropical forests will eventually switch to releasing more carbon into the atmosphere than they take out. Our new research, published in the journal Science , shows that tropical forests can resist small increases in temperature – but only up to a point.
Such forests are found right across the tropics and although they’re generally hot and wet, this simplification hides a lot of variation in climate. Some forests at the southern edge of the Amazon reach 35˚C in the hottest months of the year, while others towards the foothills of the Andes reach no more than 26˚C. The jungles of the western Amazon and Borneo are wet all year round, while elsewhere in Amazonia and in Africa there are “rainforests” that have virtually no rainfall in the driest months. We used this variation to understand how climate affects the amount of carbon tropical forests store, and to predict how this might change in the future.
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