El Nino Boosts Risks Of Amazon Fires; Associated Drop In Rainfall Coincides With Onset Of Dry Season
In the coming weeks, this year’s super El Niño impacts should kick into high gear and last through the winter. However, one of the biggest impacts might not make headlines until well after the “Godzilla” El Niño returns to the depths of the ocean. On Tuesday at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting, scientists indicated that this winter’s El Niño could cause a massive flare up of fires in the Amazon next fall. That raises major carbon emissions concerns.
El Niño, marked by a warm patch of water in the eastern tropical Pacific, influences a number of weather patterns around the world. That includes parts of the Amazon basin. El Niño decreases the likelihood of winter precipitation, which just so happens to be the region’s rainy season.
Coming into the dry season with a rainfall deficit makes the forest primed for fires. That increases the odds that small blazes people use for clearing land for farming can turn into much larger conflagrations that can release some of the Amazon’s massive store of carbon.
The Amazon stores an estimated 120 billion tons of carbon in its plants and soil and accounts for up to 25 percent of all carbon dioxide sucked out of the air every year. But in dry years, the Amazon turns into a carbon polluter, releasing more carbon than it takes up.
EDIT
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/el-nino-amazon-fires-19818
