Bogota, Colombia (AP) – droughts have withered in Peru, fires have burned Amazon and Hydroelectric dams in Ecuador have struggled to keep the lights on as dry rivers. Scientists say that the cause can be well above the tropical jungle, where invisible “flying rivers” carry the rain of the Atlantic Ocean in South America.
A new analysis warns that the relentless deforestation is interrupting that the flow of water and suggests that the continuous loss of the trees will worsen the droughts in the southwest of the Amazon and eventually it could trigger that these regions pass from the tropical jungle to the dry savanna, grassland with much less trees.
“These are the forces that really create and support the Amazon jungle,” said Matt Finer, a senior researcher of the Amazon Conservation Monitoring of the Andanan Amazon project (Maap), which tracks the threats of deforestation and climate in the basin and carried out the analysis.
“If you break that pump cutting too much forest, the rains stop getting where they need to go.”
What are flying rivers and how do they work?
Most of the Amazon rain begins on the Atlantic Ocean. Wet air is pushed into the interior by constant winds that blow west throughout Ecuador, known as commercial winds. Then, the forest acts as a pump, effectively transmitting the water thousands of miles to the west as the trees absorb water, then release it again in the air.
The Brazilian climate scientist Carlos Nobre was among the first researchers who calculated how much from the Atlantic water vapor would move and finally out of the Amazon basin. He and his colleagues coined the term “flying rivers” at a scientific meeting in 2006, and interest grew as scientists warned that a weakening of the rivers could push the Amazon to a turning point where the tropical jungle would resort to the savannah.
That is important because the Amazon jungle is a large warehouse for carbon dioxide that greatly drives the warm -up of the world. Such change would devastate wildlife and indigenous communities and threaten agriculture, water supplies and climate stability far beyond the region.
Warning signals in Peru and Bolivia
The Finer’s Group analysis found that southern Peru and northern Bolivia are especially vulnerable. During the dry season, flying rivers extend through southern Brazil before reaching the Andes, precisely where deforestation is more intense. Tree loss means that less water vapor is transported to the west, increasing the risk of drought in iconic protected areas such as the Manu National Park of Peru.
“Peru can do everything right to protect a place like Manu,” said Finer. “But if the deforestation continues to cut the bomb in Brazil, the rains that support it can never reach.”
Nobre said that up to 50% of the rains in the west of the Amazon, near the Andes, depends on the flying rivers.
Corine Vriesendorp, director of Sciences at Amazon Conservation, based in Cusco, Peru, said the changes are already visible.
“The last two years have brought the driest conditions that Amazon has seen,” said Vriesendorp. “The ecological calendars used by indigenous communities, when to plant, when fishing, when animals reproduce, are increasingly without synchronization. Having an increasingly unpredictable rain will have an even greater impact on their lives than climate change is already having.”
Farmers face failed harvests, indigenous families fight with interrupted fishing and hunting seasons and cities that depend on hydroelectric energy, see interruptions such as rivers that provide dry energy.
The forest makes a fragile bomb
Maap’s researchers found that rain pattern depend on when and where flying rivers cross the basin. In the wet station, its Northern Route flows mainly on intact forests in Guyana, Surinam and northern Brazil, maintaining the strong system.
But at the dry season, when forests are already stressed by heat, aerial rivers are cut through southern Brazil, where deforestation fronts extend along roads and farms and there are simply less trees to help move moisture.
“It is during the dry months, when the forest needs water, that the flying rivers are more altered,” Finer said.
Finer pointed out the roads that can accelerate deforestation, noting that the controversial BR-319 road in Brazil, a project to pave a path through one of the last intact parts of the south of Amazon, could create a completely new deforestation front.
The debate of the turning point
For years, scientists have warned about Amazon’s tip towards Savannah. Finer said the new study complicates that image.
“It is not a unique and total collapse,” he said. “Certain areas, like the southwest of Amazon, are more vulnerable and will feel the impacts first. And we are already seeing early signs of rain reduction in favor of the wind of the deforestated areas.”
Nobre said the risks are marked. Amazon forests have already lost about 17% of their coverage, mainly cattle and soy. Those ecosystems recycle much less water.
“The dry station now is five more weeks than 45 years ago, with 20 to 30% less rain,” he said. “If deforestation exceeds 20 to 25% and heating reaches 2 degrees Celsius, there is no way to prevent the Amazon from reaching the turning point.”
What can be done?
Protecting intact forests, supporting the rights of indigenous land and restoring deforested areas are the clearest paths, the researchers say.
“To avoid collapse, we need zero deforestation, degradation and fires, immediately,” said Nobre. “And we must begin the restoration of large -scale forests, no less than half a million square kilometers. If we do that, and maintain global warming below 2 degrees, we can still save the Amazon.”
Finer said that governments should consider new conservation categories specifically designed to protect the flying rivers, safeguarding not only the earth but the atmospheric flows that make the tropical jungle possible.
For Vriesendorp, that means regional cooperation. He praised Peru for creating vast parks and indigenous reserves in the southeast, including the Manu National Park. But, he said, “this cannot be resolved by a single country. Peru depends on Brazil, and Brazil depends on its neighbors. We need solutions throughout the basin.”
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