Annotation Bibliography #2

Citation: A controversial Russian theory claims forests don’t just make rain—they make wind. Science Magazine June 18, 2020

Summary: The theory inverts traditional thinking: It is not atmospheric circulation that drives the hydrological cycle, but the hydrological cycle that drives the mass circulation of air. Many scientists have argued that deforestation thousands of years ago was to blame for desertification in the Australian Outback and West Africa. The fear is that future deforestation could dry up other regions, for example, tipping parts of the Amazon rainforest to savanna. The study is being conducted where that show that major forest regions feed each other. Such as massive Siberian forests supply Chinese, South Asian, and even Brazil forests. They exhaust moisture that is being transferred further to the the forests, thus looping the Flying River – a term for a moisture-carrying wind that supplies rainforests with regular rains. 

Reflection: I think this piece of information is valuable to the extent that simultaneous countermeasures to deforestation are even more important than local incentives. Imagine the Brazil fully completed the war against deforestation but it will be drying and turning into Savanna anyway because the Russian part isn’t done yet. Everything in this world is interconnected. 

Quotation:  “We need new international hydrological agreements to maintain the forests of source regions” – Anastassia Makarieva
 “Forests are complex self-sustaining rainmaking systems, and the major driver of atmospheric circulation on Earth”  – Anastassia Makarieva

Annotation Bibliography #3

Citation: How Amazon forest loss may affect water—and climate—far away. National Geographic, November 19, 2018.

Summary: Even modest increases in deforestation could affect water supplies in Brazilian cities and in neighboring countries while harming the very farms he is trying to expand. More massive deforestation might alter water supplies as far away as Africa or California. Already, by the Brazilian government’s own estimates, 17 percent of the Amazon forest system has been lost—not including the parts that are still largely intact, but degraded. Most troubling of all: Some scientists suggest the Amazon may already be nearing a tipping point. The region has been so degraded that even a small uptick in deforestation could send the forest hurtling toward a transition to something resembling a woodland savanna.

Reflection: The influence of the Amazon Basin is gigantic and lies far beyond the borders of Brazil. The Brazil government, or even the governments are in high responsibility not only for local economical sustainability based on farmlands and log export, but the future tone of world climate that depends on Amazon Basin’s important role to a high degree. 

Quotation:”We need to have forest in order to have the rain necessary to plant crops” – Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert.
“We are already in a very critical situation in terms of climate change” – Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert.