Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds | Environment | The Guardian

Tropical forests losing their ability to absorb carbon, study finds | Environment | The Guardian

Rainforests losing ability to absorb carbon

Tropical trees are dying from heat and drought, destroying the forest’s ability to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Decades of measurements in hundreds of locations show that the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere by tropical forests has peaked — with the turning point in the early 1990s in the Amazon and around 2015 in Africa. If the trend is allowed to continue, the typical tropical forest could become a source of carbon emissions by the 2060s. “Humans have been lucky so far, as tropical forests are mopping up lots of our pollution,” says geographer Simon Lewis. “We need to curb fossil fuel emissions before the global carbon cycle starts working against us.” The Guardian | 7 min read Go deeper with an expert analysis by ecosystem modeller Anja Rammig in the Nature News & Views.Reference: Nature paper