Coby Beck wrote:
> >
> > Try http://www.whrc.org/southamerica/drought_sim/results.htm
>
> [thanks Alastair, interesting!]
>
> Good grief, is that Independent article really about this study??! There is
> nothing in there I saw to justify suggesting we were two years away from
> irreversable loss of the Amazon.
I think this is the part that is being misquoted:
"The death of such large trees that may take centuries to reach the top
of the forest canopy, increased from about one percent per year to nine
percent in the fourth year of the experiment, when soil water was
depleted."
and coupled with the following sentence:
"This sensitivity of large trees to drought means that a decline in
rainfall would likely cause a gradual transition from tall, green, lush
rainforest towards a shorter, more stunted forest where a great deal
more sunlight penetrates to the forest floor."
you get close to the Indy article which said:
"The trees managed the first year of drought without difficulty. In the
second year, they sunk their roots deeper to find moisture, but
survived. But in year three, they started dying. Beginning with the
tallest the trees started to come crashing down, exposing the forest
floor to the drying sun."
It seems to me that the Indy has hyped the report and you have hyped
the Indy article :-)
OTOH we don't know that Lean and/or Pearce have not spoken to the the
Woods Hole scientists and got a more alarming picture from them.
Also, note that this was an experiment - not real life. In this case
the trees put down their roots to find deeper water. In this
experiment, as I understand it, there was no attempt to prevent the
deep water table from being replenished from the surrounding forest
which was not covered, and thus the only trees in the centre of the
test area would feel the full effects of the artificial drought. This
would not be the case in a real drought, where all the trees would have
difficulty finding deep water. So in real life the situation may be
worse than in hte experiment.
> What's worse is it means now I have to sound like a "climate sceptic" and
> complain about "chicken little alarmism".
Don't forget that the Woods Hole report is written so that it doesn't
sound like "chicken little alarmism." Lean and Pearce may be reporting
what the scientists really believe :-(
Cheers, Alastair.
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