In the depths of the Amazon, Brazil is building an otherworldly structure — a complex of towers arrayed in six rings poised to spray mists of carbon dioxide into the rainforest — but the reason is utterly terrestrial: To understand how the world’s largest tropical forest responds to climate change.
Dubbed AmazonFACE, the project would probe the forest’s remarkable ability to sequester carbon dioxide, which it is hoped would help scientists understand whether the region has a tipping point that could throw it into a state of irreversible decline.
Such an event, also known as the Amazon forest dieback, would transform the world’s most biodiverse forest into a drier savannah-like landscape.
Photo: Reuters
FACE stands for Free Air Carbon Dioxide Enrichment. The technology, first developed by the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, has the ability to modify the surrounding environment of growing plants in a way that replicates different levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
“Plants absorb carbon dioxide along with water and light to produce sugars and release oxygen. What happens when one increases this input? We don’t know,” said David Lapola, one of the leading scientists of the project. “We have evidence from similar experiments in temperate forests, but there is no guarantee that the behavior will be the same here in the Amazon.”
Lapola, a professor at the State University of Campinas, said that the tipping point of the Amazon rainforest is more likely tied to climate change rather than the rate of deforestation.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Thus, it is crucial to study the impact of higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in the forest to understand what lies ahead, he said.
This perspective challenges a widely quoted study by Earth system scientist Carlos Nobre, who wrote that if deforestation reaches a critical threshold of 20 to 25 percent across the Amazon, the balance of the region’s rainfall system would be disrupted, leading to the transformation of the lush rainforest into a savannah.
“Even if we halted deforestation in the Amazon basin today, the forest would still be at risk of experiencing the consequences of a tipping point due to climate change,” Lapola said. “While stopping deforestation remains our primary responsibility, combating the climate change driven by atmospheric factors is not something that Brazil or other Amazonian countries can address alone.”
The construction of the initial two rings is under way and they are expected to be operational by early August. Each ring would consist of 16 aluminum towers as high as a 12-story building. The carbon dioxide would be supplied by three companies to avoid shortages.
Situated 70km north of Manaus, the project is led by the Brazilian National Institute for Amazon Research, a federal institution, with financial support from the British government, which has pledged US$9 million. It should be fully operational by the middle of next year.
Luciana Gatti, an atmospheric chemist, praised the initiative and said it would be highly beneficial to replicate the project in the four quadrants of the Amazon, as the carbon absorption capacity varies significantly across the region.
Gatti, who is not directly involved with AmazonFACE, coauthored a study published in the journal Nature that said the eastern Amazon has ceased to function as a carbon sink, or absorber for the Earth, and has transitioned into a carbon source.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS