Amazon forest carbon sink closed by 2010 drought: Scientists

Q.  Amazon forest spanning across Brazil, Peru, Columbia and other South American countries is the world’s ___________ forest.
- Published on 08 Jul 16

a. Largest
b. Second Largest
c. Third Largest
d. Fourth Largest

ANSWER: Largest
 
Amazon forest spanning across Brazil, Columbia, Peru and other South American countries is the world’s largest forest covering 5.5 million square kilometres.
  • Scientists have estimated that the forest stores 100 bt of carbon in its biomass and changes can have global consequences
  • This forest suffered a mjor drought in 2005, then 2010
  • 2010 drought shut down the Amazon Basin carbon sink by destroying trees and slowing growth
  • Amazon may be losing the capacity to take carbon from the atmosphere as a result of this
  • This marks the first basin wide study of the impact of the 2010 drought and its interaction with previous droughts
  • Using long term measurements from the RAINFOR network spanning close to 100 locations across the Amazon basin, the first and second drought were found to have temporarily lost biomass

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