Amazon forest may get drier, but survive warming

OSLO (Reuters) – Amazonian forests may be less vulnerable to dying off from global warming than feared because many projections underestimate rainfall, a study showed.

The report, by scientists in Britain, said Brazil and other nations in the region would also have to act to help avert any irreversible drying of the eastern Amazon, the region most at risk from climate change, deforestation and fires.

“The rainfall regime in eastern Amazonia is likely to shift over the 21st century in a direction that favors more seasonal forests rather than savannah,” they wrote in this week’s U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, released on Monday.

Seasonal forests have wet and dry seasons rather than the current rainforest, which is permanently drenched. That shift could favor new species of trees, other plants and animals.

The findings contrast with past projections that the Amazon forest could die and be replaced by savannah.

Reuters