Poor Amazon Rains Linked to Brazil Deforestation

For decades, the dry season in Amazon Rainforest has been dry. A new study, Published on TuesdayAbout 75 percent of the decrease in rainfall was directly dependent on the lack of forest.

The study in nature communication found that the loss of tree is partially responsible for increasing heat in Amazon. Since 1985, the hottest days in Amazon have heated about 2 degrees Celsius. Researchers found that approximately 16 percent of this increase was caused by forest.

Marco Franco, an assistant professor at the University of São Paulo, led the study, said he was surprised by the findings. Ik We were expecting to see the disintegration as a driver, but not that much, ”he said. “He tells us a lot about what is happening in my biom.”

Amazon rainforests are often called the lungs of the planet, because the trees help to regulate global climate by absorbing carbon dioxide heated. However, in the forest, large -scale logic and burning in the forest have recently translated this scenario and some parts of the region have become net greenhouse gas manufacturers.

Amazon also directs regional weather conditions. The trees draw water from the soil and release this moisture from small pores in its leaves with a process known as sweating. There are hundreds of billions of trees in the Amazon Basin and it is estimated that the water they collectively released into the air will contribute to more than 40 percent of all the rainfall of the region.

Callum Smith, a post -doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds in the UK, said Callum Smith, who studied tropical forests and was not included in the study of nature communication. “If you cut a tree, it will reduce the moisture entering the atmosphere.”

In 2023, Dr. Smith led A study using large satellite data sets To better understand the connection between forests and decreases in precipitation. He said that scientists have long known about this effect, but that air changes are not always in the same place as the disorganization and that it did not make it difficult to measure relationships.

Dr. Smith said that he used new work, sophisticated analytical methods and represents one step further in knowledge.

Luiz Machado, a professor of climate and meteorology at the University of São Paulo and the author of the new study, said that the climate in Amazon has changed because of climate change and disintegration. But so far, he said, “Nobody knew exactly what each of these things has contributed,” he said.

The study analyzed 29 episodes of the Amazon Basin within the borders of Brazil and used large satellite data sets to distinguish effects such as landscapes that developed between 1985 and 2020, changing the climate and changing weather conditions.

Franco and Dr. Machado found that the lack of forests continued to 74.5 percent of the decrease in rainfall throughout the basin, while they stressed that it was only average. He said that he experienced more precipitation losses in areas with more forests.

In tropical regions, the year is divided into two seasons: dry and wet. The study found that the lack of disintegration caused rainfall loss in both seasons. However, since the effect in the dry season is much more pronounced, the researchers said they decided to focus on that period. (For the purposes of the study, the definition of dry season varied between the fields. It is thought that it was usually continued from June to November.)

Even during the dry season, ecosystems depend on rain. “As a joke, we would say that the rain in Amazon was raining all day and the dry season in Amazon was raining every day,” he said. But that’s not right anymore.

Less rainfall does not only mean less water for plants and animals. As the forest becomes more dry, it becomes more prone to forest fires, which eliminates more trees. The region struggled with curved line and burned agriculture, which fires used to clean large land roads for farm and farming. Sometimes, these fires burn out of control.

In 2024, more than 40 million acres of Amazon Rainforest rose with smoke. And in the first half of 2025, according to the observations of the Brazilian Space Agency, the lacking was already 27 percent higher than the previous year. Researchers are a feedback cycle that threatens to rain.

And not just the wild ecosystems that suffer. Brazil’s largest farming centers are directly adjacent to Amazon. Researchers said that sufficient rainfall requires a healthy forest for products in these regions.

Farmers in states like Mato Grosso, Dr. Franco is losing crops to drought. In 2024, the state went without rain for 150 days.

“If you don’t rain, you didn’t rain for farming in Brazil,” he said. “This is not something for the future. This is already happening now.”