Daryle Lockhart
How The Sci-Fi Generation Saved The World!
This is the first-ever map of the surface of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. The map, which shows temperature variations across the cloudy tops of a gas giant called HD 189733b, is made from infrared data taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. Hotter temperatures are represented in brighter colors.
Source: First Map of an Exoplanet Atmosphere, Spitzer Space Telescope
The Amazon basin in transition
Nature realized an on-line special about Amazon: The changing Amazon. In the special there are some interesting papers and articles. For example Citizen scientists’ climate-impact survey wraps up by Priya Shetty about a great project about the affection of climate change on forests; or Break down boundaries in climate research about Paolo Artaxo and collegues review work, The Amazon basin in transition:Agricultural expansion and climate variability have become important agents of disturbance in the Amazon basin. Recent studies have demonstrated considerable resilience of Amazonian forests to moderate annual drought, but they also show that interactions between deforestation, fire and drought potentially lead to losses of carbon storage and changes in regional precipitation patterns and river discharge. Although the basin-wide impacts of land use and drought may not yet surpass the magnitude of natural variability of hydrologic and biogeochemical cycles, there are some signs of a transition to a disturbance-dominated regime. These signs include changing energy and water cycles in the southern and eastern portions of the Amazon basin.
In particular I’m interested about two particular maps. The first is about the climate gradient across Amazon
Main figure, the hydrologic Amazon basin is demarcated by a thick blue line; isopleths of mean daily precipitation during the three driest months of the year (in mm; white lines) are overlain onto four land-cover classes (key at bottom left). These isopleths are presented only for areas within Brazil, because of lack of adequate data elsewhere. The arrow emphasizes the trend from continuously wet conditions in the northwest to long and pronounced dry seasons in the southeast, which includes Cerrado (savannah/woodland) vegetation. National boundaries are demarcated by broken black lines. Inset, map showing area of main figure (boxed).
and the second (that I attach at the end of the post) is about the future fire risk of Amazon by 2050.
The review it seems very complete (researchers examin all possible causes of climate change), and it concludes with the following words:The emerging evidence of a system in biophysical transition highlights the need for improved understanding of the trade-offs between land cover, carbon stocks, water resources, habitat conservation, human health and economic development in future scenarios of climate and land-use change. Brazil is poised to become one of the few countries to achieve the transition to a major economic power without destroying most of its forests. However, continued improvements in scientific and technological capacity and human resources will be required in the Amazon region to guide and manage both biophysical and socio-economic transitions.
