Drought Takes Hold as Amazon’s ‘Flying Rivers’ Dry Up

[unhappycamper]

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/drought-takes-hold-as-amazons-flying-rivers-disappear-18097



Scientists in Brazil believe the loss of billions of liters of water released as vapour clouds by Amazon rainforest trees is the result of continuing deforestation and climate change – leading to devastating drought.

Drought Takes Hold as Amazon’s ‘Flying Rivers’ Dry Up
By Jan Rocha, Climate News Network
September 28th, 2014

SÃO PAULO ? The unprecedented drought now affecting São Paulo, South America’s giant metropolis, is believed to be caused by the absence of the “flying rivers” ? the vapor clouds from the Amazon that normally bring rain to the center and south of Brazil.

Some Brazilian scientists say the absence of rain that has dried up rivers and reservoirs in central and southeast Brazil is not just a quirk of nature, but a change brought about by a combination of the continuing deforestation of the Amazon and global warming.

This combination, they say, is reducing the role of the Amazon rainforest as a giant “water pump,” releasing billions of liters of humidity from the trees into the air in the form of vapor.

Meteorologist Jose Marengo, a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, first coined the phrase “flying rivers” to describe these massive volumes of vapor that rise from the rainforest, travel west, and then ? blocked by the Andes ? turn south.




Vapor released from the leaves of trees in the Amazon rainforest create vital ‘flying rivers.’ Without that, drought takes hold.