Tropical deforestation significantly reduces rainfall: study

[NickB79]

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tropical-deforestation-significantly-reduces-rainfall-122212532.html

From the Amazon to the evergreen forests of Africa and Southeast Asia, large-scale deforestation threatens reductions in rainfall across the tropics, according to new research.

The threat is most acute in the Congo Basin -- forecast to endure rapid deforestation in the coming years -- which could see rainfall reduced by up to ten percent by the end of the century, researchers found.

The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, used satellite observations over recent decades to confirm predictions in climate change computer models that rainfall would lessen across the tropics as more forest is cut down.

The findings add to concerns that "we could come to a point where the rainforests cannot sustain themselves," said the study's lead author, Callum Smith of the University of Leeds.

This is one of the major tipping points that climate scientists have warned us about for years now. A downward spiral that ends with most of the planet's rainforests drying out and burning up. Their loss would be an ecological disaster, with potentially millions of species lost, and the billions of tons of carbon they'll release as they go up in flames will push us into range of the worst-case, apocalyptic climate models. And now we're starting to see real-world results confirming what those scientists speculated.

[applegrove]

1. The wealthy in the world need to buy up rainforest now. Pay taxes

on that land too every year. Keep them as parks.