- The Amazon river could dry up and its lush vegetation
turn into a dustbowl within 50 years because of global warming, British
scientists warned yesterday.
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- The stark vision for the Amazon rainforest would result
from a shift in rainfall patterns caused by changes in ocean currents in
the Pacific, according to Dr Mat Collins, a senior research fellow at the
Meteorological Office in Reading. "In our model, 50 years from now
the Amazon dries up and dies," he told the British Association at
the University of Salford yesterday.
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- He added: "There would be a reinforcing effect because,
as the rainforest dried up, the carbon that is presently locked in its
vegetation would be released into the atmosphere."
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- The chances of such a calamity are presently estimated
only at between 10 and 20 per cent. But Dr Collins emphasised that this
was a "preliminary" estimate.
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- Deforestation of the Amazon leapt by 40 per cent in the
year to August 2002, after falling or remaining steady for the previous
eight years. At the time, Brazil's Environment Minister described it as
"highly worrying" and called for "emergency action"
to halt the trend.
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- The key trigger for the gloomy scenario described by
Dr Collins was a "super El Nino" - a larger version of the warm
ocean current that every few years causes warm water to travel towards
the eastern Pacific, bringing floods in western South America and drought
in the west Pacific.
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- "Usually El Nino occurs once every three to seven
years; it's a natural way that the climate varies," said Dr Collins.
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- "But when you increase global warming then you get
more of these events."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=441644
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