Understanding the Amazon Tipping Point
Why Preserving The Amazon May Be The Most Important Strategy To Fight Climate Change.
This story is co-authored with Dr. Sílvia PM, PhD 🍂, macroecologist and conservation paleobiologist.
Anyone with a passing familiarity with climate change knows that scientists and activists are especially concerned about the Amazon Rainforest. Reaching the so-called ‘Amazon tipping point’ could devastate the Amazon and affect all ecosystems worldwide.
But what exactly does an ecological ‘tipping point’ mean? Can a change in the Amazon affect the entire Earth? And what does Amazon deforestation have to do with climate change in Europe or Australia?
Luckily, Dr. PM and I were able to work for the Amazon cause for a year, and we dedicated a good part of our work to communicating the peer-reviewed literature to public stakeholders worldwide. We want to share some of what we learned with you here.
How is Amazon precipitation created?
To understand the Amazon tipping point, we must first understand how the Amazon climate works.
Before the 1970s, there was a misconception that vegetation was just the result of local climate and that vegetation didn’t affect climate…
