Once in a century drought in Amazon occurs twice in same decade

Big News Network.com
Saturday 5th February, 2011

When a severe drought hit the Amazon in 2005, it was considered a ‘once in a century’ disaster, but just six years later a drought even worse in its extent is sending chills through the scientific community.

The Amazon River has fallen to its lowest level in decades, leaving scores of towns and cities along its length, and those of its tributaries, stranded as water levels either fall too low for safe navigation by boat, or evaporate entirely.

Rivers such as the Rio Negro, which flows into the Amazon, have dried up completely and the Brazilian government has declared a state of emergency in several dozen towns in the river system.

Although the current drought is severe in its impact on local communities, it is of growing concern to the international community because of the critical role the Amazon plays in the global environment.

Traditionally known as the ‘lungs of the world’, the Amazon in 2011 will become a carbon emitter, rather than a carbon sink. A report published in the leading journal Science, predicts that the Amazon will this year, due to the drought, release almost as much carbon as the entire United States.

The river system will emit over 5 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the wake of the drought, while the US emitted around 5.4 billion tonnes of CO2 in 2009.

The Brazilian and British scientists who compiled the report have said that the Amazon basin is likely to therefore become carbon neutral as dead trees and vegetation rot and emit CO2, cancelling out the oxygen released by the remaining forests.

“We could see an increase in the severity and the number of these droughts, which could lead into a vicious cycle: droughts, then the forests releasing carbon, reinforcing those droughts,” the report’s co-author, Simon Lewis, from the University of Leeds, told CNN.

He stressed that further research is needed to ascertain whether this was an “unusual decade” or a symptom of global warming. If such research was not under taken, he warned that the world would be “playing Russian roulette” with its largest rainforest.