Less rain means a greener Amazon Rainforest?

September 21, 2007

While this might be contrary to conventional think a new study has concluded that a drought in the Amazon rainforest may actually make it greener. The full report is published in the September 21, 2007 Journal �Science�. With the threat of global warming and climates changing rapidly scientist have long feared a drought that might strike the mightiest of the earths forests. However this new study has given some hope that a drought to the Amazon Rainforest may not b as catastrophic as first thought. Of course this does not dismiss the constant threat to the rainforest from deforestation.

Researcher Scott Saleska has studied the 2005 drought in the Amazon Rainforest and now concludes that trees were able to grow their roots deeper to sustain themselves. Satellite images show that the changes in the amount of chlorophyll and leaf area actually increased during the drought. This may be caused by the fact that the trees had more access to sunlight, and weren�t blocked by overgrowth.

The fear has always been that once a drought started it the plants would respire less, thus leading to even less water vapor in the Amazonia region. With less available water vapor, there would then be even less precipitation causing a self sustaining cycle or drought.