Remember all that talk about how CO2 was going to make Planet Earth a green and verdant garden?
Turns out, not so much.
Amid extreme drought across South America exacerbated by climate-change related heat extremes and El Niño, major tributaries of the Amazon River are reporting record-low water levels.
Why it matters: The measurements warn that parts of the Amazon Basin, the largest watershed in the world, are being stressed and the deterioration of the one of the most biodiverseplaces on Earth may be accelerating.
- The drought is also driving extensive wildfires and human-caused fires that are smothering Brazilian cities with smoke.
By the numbers: The water level of the Negro River dropped to 44.3 feet on Tuesday — the lowest since measurements began there 121 years ago.
- The measurement was taken near Manaus, the capital and largest city of the Brazilian state of Amazonas situated on the confluence of the Negro and Amazon Rivers.
- Around 10% of the water in the Amazon basin drains through the Negro River, which is considered the world’s sixth largest river by water volume.
- The Madeira River, another vital tributary of the Amazon, also recorded historically low levels, according to AP.
Over 11,500 fires were detected through the Amazon during the first 16 days of October, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research.
- Amazonas, which is almost entirely covered by the Amazon rainforest, has so far seen almost 3,000 fires — making it the worst October since records began 25 years ago.
The world is gradually becoming less green, scientists have found. Plant growth is declining all over the planet, and new research links the phenomenon to decreasing moisture in the air—a consequence of climate change.
The study published yesterday in Science Advances points to satellite observations that revealed expanding vegetation worldwide during much of the 1980s and 1990s. But then, about 20 years ago, the trend stopped.
Since then, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have been experiencing a “browning” trend, or decrease in plant growth, according to the authors.
Climate records suggest the declines are associated with a metric known as vapor pressure deficit—that’s the difference between the amount of moisture the air actually holds versus the maximum amount of moisture it could be holding. A high deficit is sometimes referred to as an atmospheric drought.
Since the late 1990s, more than half of the world’s vegetated landscapes have experienced a growing deficit, or drying pattern.
Climate models indicate that vapor pressure deficit is likely to continue increasing as the world warms—a pattern that “might have a substantially negative impact on vegetation,” the authors write.
Climatologist Brian Brettschneider has this:
NASA article from 2019:
Human Activity in China and India Dominates the Greening of Earth, NASA Study Shows
This chart goes to 2021:
https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/08/17190148/Screen-Shot-2022-08-17-at-12.01.13-PM.png
Approximately 6.6m hectares globally burned in 2022, plus ~18.5 m hectares haves burned in Canada alone by mid-October of 2023.
Yes. About 30% of the global greening was from agricultural method improvements and planting trees in India and China. China planted 1 billion trees
Yet another irony of US agriculture is that while corn suffers from from the effects of climate change, it is already an efficient user of CO2 and gets negligible benefit (if any) from the increase in atmospheric CO2.
Uruguay has also been in drought. Like Brazil, it gets a lot of its electricty from hydro, with resulting low power emissions, by world standards. Uruguay also gets a very high proportion of its power from wind turbines, as does the North-East region of Brazil – probably higher than anywhere except Iowa. So far it looks like both countries are still burning very little fossil fuel for power though.