Brazilian Meteorologist - Warming May Transform Amazon Forests To Savannah By 2100 - SMH

[hatrack]

GLOBAL warming could spell the end of the world's largest remaining tropical rainforest, transforming the Amazon into a grassy savanna before the end of the century, researchers said yesterday.

Jose Antonio Marengo, a meteorologist with Brazil's National Space Research Institute, said global warming, if left unchecked, would reduce rainfall and raise temperatures substantially in the ecologically rich region. "We are working with two scenarios, a worst case and a second, more optimistic, one," he said.

"The worst case scenario sees temperatures rise by five to eight degrees by 2100, while rainfall will decrease between 15 and 20 per cent," Mr Marengo said. "This setting will transform the Amazon rainforest into a savanna-like landscape."

The more optimistic scenario supposes governments take more aggressive action to halt global warming, but would still have temperatures rising in the Amazon region by three to five degrees and rainfall dropping by 5 to 15 per cent, Mr Marengo said. "If pollution is controlled and deforestation reduced, the temperature would rise by about five degrees in 2100," Marengo said. "Within this scenario, the rainforest will not come to the point of total collapse."

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/death-of-amazon-rainforest-possible-researcher-warns/2006/12/30/1166895522620.html

[NMDemDist2]

1. when I read the headline, I thought we'd have rainforests in Georgia

the "h" threw me....