Drought threatens Amazon, speeds global warming: study

Drought is killing off trees in Brazil's fragile Amazon rain forest according to a recent study. The Amazon's lush vegetation in a typical year absorbs nearly two billion tons of carbon dioxide. The Amazon tree canopy which absorbs massive amounts of greenhouse gases often succumbs to the effects of dryness, thereby accelerating global warming by not absorbing CO2. Researchers said the total impact of the drought was an additional five billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The research from more than 40 institutions around the world was gathered during a bad drought in 2005, which had a severe impact on the plants of the Amazon. The drought that year dramatically reversed decades of carbon absorption, the researchers said.
"For years, the Amazon forest has been helping to slow down climate change. But relying on this subsidy from nature is extremely dangerous," said Professor Oliver Phillips of Britain's University of Leeds, the lead author of the study.
Phillips said, "Because the region is so vast, even small ecological effects can scale-up to a large impact on the planet's carbon cycle."
Scientists say the Amazon covers an area 25 times the size of the United Kingdom and accounts for more than half of the world's rainforest. The study involving 68 scientists found that various species of tropical trees are very vulnerable to drought. These findings are especially bad because scientists predict the creation of a potentially devastating cycle in which the Amazon's hotter and more intense future dry seasons in turn lead to more greenhouse gas emissions and even more drought.

Final Focus: further reseach needed

When I wrote my blog analysis essay, I discovered that it would be helpful for me to do some research on what an average person could do to help the global warming crisis get better. I think it would be interesting for people to see what they could do. This will be the subject of one of my last two research posts. Another will be on more of how the wildlife, specifically the plants, are affected by global warming. These subjects came from what I find most interesting and what would most enhance my blog. The final focus of my research will be my interview/observation at the Chewonki facilities. I intend to ask one of the people I know who works there, what exactly they do to combat global warming. I hope to gain quite a bit of information from this interview since Chewonki has some really advanced facilities for fighting climate change. For farther research for my final oral presentation, I still need to complete my interview and my last two articles. I also would like to do some more research on the aspects of my topic that I enjoy. I also need to figure out a display to use as a background for my presentation.