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Amazon rainforest fire in Brazil's indigenous territory in 2017 Deforestation and biodiversity loss in the Amazon rainforest have resulted in significant risks of irreversible changes. Modeling studies have suggested that deforestation may be approaching a critical " tipping point " where large-scale " savannization " or desertification could ...
Satellites in September recorded 32,017 hotspots in the world's largest rainforest, a 61% rise from the same month in 2019. [140] In addition, October saw a huge surge in the number of hotspots in the forest (more than 17,000 fires are burning in the Amazon's rainforest) – with more than double the amount detected in the same month last year.
Amazon River rain forest in Peru. Tropical rainforests are hot and wet. Mean monthly temperatures exceed 18 °C (64 °F) during all months of the year. [4] Average annual rainfall is no less than 1,680 mm (66 in) and can exceed 10 m (390 in) although it typically lies between 1,750 mm (69 in) and 3,000 mm (120 in). [5]
Much of what remains of the world's rainforests is in the Amazon basin, where the Amazon Rainforest covers approximately 4 million square kilometres. [62] Some 80% of the deforestation of the Amazon can be attributed to cattle ranching, [63] as Brazil is the largest exporter of beef in the world. [64]
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
Fire has played a major role in shaping the world's vegetation. The biological process of photosynthesis began to concentrate the atmospheric oxygen needed for combustion during the Devonian approximately 350 million years ago. Then, approximately 125 million years ago, fire began to influence the habitat of land plants.
Such activity is generally illegal within these nations, but enforcement of environmental protection can be lax. The increased rates of fire counts in 2019 led to international concern about the fate of the Amazon rainforest, which is the world's largest terrestrial carbon dioxide sink and plays a significant role in mitigating global warming.
One of the world's largest and most dense rainforests is the Amazon rainforest in South America. Rainforests are disappearing across the world, and at an alarming rate in Brazil. Since the 1980s, more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rainforest has fallen victim to deforestation. [6]