Research
How would the Amazon react if it dried up? A 25-year-old field study has the answer
Mongabay · By Luís Patriani ·
The Brief
- A 25-year-old field study subjected an area of Amazon rainforest to experimental drying.
- The study aims to predict how the Amazon biome may fare under extreme droughts in a warming world.
Why it matters
Long-term field experiments on drought effects in the Amazon help test forecasts of how the largest tropical rainforest may respond to more frequent extreme droughts.
Who’s affected
- climate scientists
- ecologists studying tropical forests
A question hangs in the air while the soil of the planet’s largest tropical rainforest grows increasingly dry: What is the Amazon’s future facing extreme droughts in a warming world? To try to predict the fate of the biome, an ambitious experiment subjected an area of Amazon…