Data Show Amazon Still 'Lungs of the World'
Date: 30-Jul-04
Country: BRAZIL
Author: Axel Bugge
The projections show that the trees in the world's largest tropical forest are cleaning the air by absorbing carbon dioxide. The data collected indicates that the Amazon absorbs slightly more carbon dioxide than the burning spews out.
"The indication is that it is a small net supplier of oxygen," said Paulo Artaxo, a researcher at the University of Sao Paulo.
That conclusion is based on the latest projections made possible by the Large Scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia, the world's leading study of jungle deforestation.
Experts are meeting this week in Brasilia to discuss the findings of the series of experiments, which started in 1998 and are conducted by Brazilian and foreign organizations, including the U.S. space agency NASA.
The results are based on data collected by 14 observation towers in the jungles, which scientists use to monitor carbon dioxide, wind, temperature levels and weather conditions. The full findings are not yet ready but projections are.
Scientists have long thought that the Amazon is a net producer of oxygen. The issue is politically sensitive in Brazil because it reinforces environmentalists' calls to stop Amazon burning, which hit its second-highest level last year.
"This situation can be extremely advantageous for Brazil," said Artaxo. "There is just the problem of the burning."
The Amazon, home to up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant species, covers an area of continuous forest larger than the continental United States.
An area of 5.9 million acres, bigger than the U.S. state of New Jersey, was destroyed as loggers and farmers hacked and burned the forest in 2003. Scientists warned at the conference that rising temperatures and declining rainfall are accelerating its disappearance.
Scientists at the conference said there is additional sensitivity surrounding the Amazon's absorption of carbon dioxide because the government is expected to publish this year a long-delayed inventory of Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions.
The report is expected to show that Brazil is among the world's 10 top polluters and that 75 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions come from Amazon burning. It will be first official confirmation of that information.
Under the Kyoto Protocol to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which Brazil has signed, the country is obliged to produce an inventory of its pollution. The problem is that under the international agreement the inventory will not include carbon dioxide absorption.