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The role of Amazon fires in the record atmospheric CO₂ growth in 2024
- barbazoo 1y ago> The Amazon contributing 741 ± 61 teragram of carbon-its highest level since 2000 and more than half of the global fire emission anomaly. This surge, driven by exceptional heat and drought, offset two decades of declining deforestation emissions. That's rough, whatever gains we thought we made, puff gone. The next sentence paints us a picture of what the future holds. Many of us are going to be here for pretty drastic events I could imagine.
- mattigames 1y ago[flagged]
- tomhow 1y agoWe've banned this account for repeatedly posting inflammatory rhetoric and ignoring our requests to stop. You're a longtime user who has made positive contributions to HN and we don't want to ban you, but we can't continue to tolerate this. If you don't want to be banned, you can contact us at hn@ycombinator.com to discuss it further.
- vkou 1y agoMore than a few dozen people stand between where we are and a carbon-neutral future/alt-history. But there were some important tipping points that have pushed us into our current do-nothing trajectory. The stolen 2000 election was a notable one. We've already hit 1.5C, by the way. Hold on to your butts. https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2024/ https://berkeleyearth.org/global-temperature-report-for-2024...
- tomComb 1y agoThe climate change self reinforcing loop
- ufocia 1y ago[flagged]
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- gmuslera 1y agoIn 2023 there was also massive fires in Canada covering a similar area, 2021 Siberia, in 2019/2020 in Australia, 2015 in Indonesia (peat fires, less area but similar emissions)... there is a long list of extended fires with weighty emissions all in the last decade that nullifies and add a big share to every trial of forestation as natural carbon capture method. And things will get worse as that is in part a positive feedback loop.
- guidedlight 1y agoAustralia has long had fires. Fires are an integral part of Australia’s historic natural environment. So much so, that Eucalyptus trees evolved to become a fire dependent species that benefits from regular burning. This is why they are so dangerous when planted in places like Los Angeles.
- gmuslera 1y agoI’m not meaning that ocasional/limited forest fires can or not be healthy for forest. Just that the mentioned ones were all record breaking, and had a significant contribution to long lasting CO2 in the atmosphere, all of them were in similar orders than the 2024 fires. And that carbon capture through planting trees may be something fragile and short lived.
- bobbylarrybobby 1y agoThe 2019–2020 fires were so hot that eucalyptus trees actually struggled to reproduce. Trees with pyrophilic seeds that normally like a good scorching were instead totally consumed by the fires, and the soil got so hot that seeds already dropped and buried were burned to death. Trees that store energy in their wood (either underground or shielded by bark) got so hot that their normally safe wood burned. Obviously not every tree died due to the fires, but the death and destruction left in the wake of this fire was on a scale far surpassing past fires. Not to mention the deaths of animals. Recommended reading: The End of Eden by Adam Welz, which basically covers how global weirding and extreme weather events have pushed species already teetering on the edge of survival over the brink.
- airstrike 1y ago[flagged]
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- leoff 1y ago[flagged]
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- idontwantthis 1y agoThe oppression I would put up with if the right pivoted against global warming…
- HappyPanacea 1y agoThere is no such single entity as the global right, the world is far too diverse and complicated for that. This seems to be mostly an USA tendency.
- kingkawn 1y agoHow’s the air down there in the sand
- HappyPanacea 1y agoIn many other countries other than the USA the gap between left and right in regards to climate change is much smaller and majority on the right are at least concerned about it and it is definitely NOT part of their identity. How does pointing out this misconception is "burying my head in sand" as your reply implies? At no point I imply that climate change shouldn't be carefully studied and mitigated. This forums' USA centrism (although unsurprising) is really starting to get on my nerves.
- kingkawn 1y agoGreat story really moving take some pills for your nerves
- sailingparrot 1y ago
- woliveirajr 1y ago"Tree trunks in the Amazon are getting 3.3% thicker every decade as the plants absorb extra carbon dioxide, suggesting they are more resilient to global warming than previously thought." https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/amazon-rainforest-trees-are-resisting-climate-change-by-getting-fatter-from-co2-in-the-atmosphere https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/amaz...
- Nevermark 1y agoIt should be no surprise that at the margin virtually every plant gets a small boost from higher CO2. Plants don’t get the optimal amount of any component, because they balance the components they take from the environment against the energy costs of acquiring them and other constraints. If any component gets a little easier to aquire, the plant will do a little better. If it’s a long term change, the plant will evolve a new balance that will improve it slightly more. But rising CO2 (in addition to making animal life dumber*) is contributing to a slow but radical rearrangement of local conditions through the globe. Temperature changes, precipitation levels, wind and storm prevalence, sea encroachment and season lengths being the biggest. And both have tremendous impact on plants. The faster the change. The worse the damage. When changes compound, they can happen very fast. * CO2 levels have gone from 240ppm to 420ppm. At 1,000 ppm there are clear measurable impacts on human cognition. Given cognition is such a critical capability, it begs the question: what is the actual curve of CO2ppm to cognitive effects. Same goes for metabolic efficiency related to our need to expel CO2. Because even small consistent subtle effects over time are likely to have practical effects. And also because raising the floor of CO2 outside, also raises the bar inside where CO2 notoriously collects, and decreases the rate that enclosed spaces can renormalize levels when given a chance. Both of which raise the indoor CO2 expected and ceiling values.
- woliveirajr 1y agoPerfect. It should be no surprise but sometimes it is: some people get really surprised when they discover that higher temperatures, extra light and more CO2 make plants bigger. Or when they find out that pre-historical times had less oxygen and more CO2. CO2 is so demonized that people forget that it's essential to life (at least, to some forms of life).
- ConanRus 1y ago[dead]
- ck2 1y agoI find it hard to believe anything can top the non-stop burning of natural gas the past two decades from the Bakken fracking fields in North Dakota Think about how much fuel they waste, tons of CO2 and heating the atmosphere just to get to the oil https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a-mysterious-patch-of-light-shows-up-in-the-north-dakota-dark https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/01/16/169511949/a... > Today, 29 percent of the natural gas extracted in North Dakota is just burned away. This wasted amount represents enough gas to heat half a million homes
- thegrim33 1y agoCombining the data in the article that was posted (741 ± 61 teragram of carbon annually) with a single Google search about the Bakken fields (4 tons of carbon daily), yields a result that this contribution from the Amazon is 507,534 times larger than the contribution from the Bakken fields.
- qwerpy 1y agoI knew someone would inevitably try to find a way to refocus the blame on America. Thanks for illustrating just how ridiculously wrong it was in this instance.
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- TSiege 1y agoThe misconception here is that the carbon in the Bakken is locked up geologically and essentially removed the biosphere’s carbon cycle but the Amazon is not. Even if the entire Amazon rainforest were to burn it wouldn’t change that. The problem with fossil fuels is that we are added sequestered to our biosphere at rates it cannot adapt to. So while absolute terms are less it isn’t the same and we should be worried about what OP is discussing
- wat10000 1y agoThat last sentence should give you an immediate idea of the scale, and that it’s not going to be near the top. Half a million homes is tiny when we’re talking about the entire globe. Thats like one medium-sized city, and just the heating, not any other energy use. It would be nice to capture that energy instead of wasting it, but there are far bigger fish to fry.
- htamas 1y agoThe Amazon forest is unique in many ways but most importantly because unlike other forests, it CANNOT grow back. The reason for this is that it is a leftover from when the planet was covered in rainforests because it was a lot warmer and wetter in the Eocene epoch. The forest is sustained by the rain it creates from itself. Once the trees are gone, the water will be gone. [1] We also have reasons to think this self-sustaining climate is going to collapse soon [2] So far the best way to protect it I have found is through the Rainforest Trust [3] which is a foundation that's trying to purchase and protect parts of the rainforests that companies would otherwise cut or burn down for agricultural use. [1]https://youtu.be/hb3b-A6QAc8 https://youtu.be/hb3b-A6QAc8 [2]https://www.nasa.gov/earth-and-climate/human-activities-are-drying-out-the-amazon-nasa-study/?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.nasa.gov/earth-and-climate/human-activities-are-... [3]https://www.rainforesttrust.org https://www.rainforesttrust.org
- woah 1y ago> The reason for this is that it is a leftover from when the planet was covered in rainforests because it was a lot warmer and wetter in the Eocene epoch. Won't it get much warmer and wetter once global warming hits, allowing the rainforest to grow back?
- XorNot 1y agoGlobal warming will not reforest the planet with a substantially different biosphere to set the conditions for the Amazon to regrow and then persist. I mean I suppose it could but contingent on that would be things like "thousands of years" and "likely substantial extinction of human population centers".
- TSiege 1y agoNot necessarily, (or even according to climate models I’ve seen). The feedback the OP mentioned is because trees near the coasts catch rain that they then respirate back up and create an atmospheric river that moves inland and falls as rain thus continuing the cycle inward. This cycle is disrupted by deforestation and can stop during a state change where it turns into Savannah. Savannah's are much drier and don’t cycle through water like the rain forest would. We’ll also see abrupt changes in global climate which will lead to completely different global rainfall patterns than we know today. For example the Sahara desert will likely turn into grassland/forest (which has happened in the past). The rainforest being a holdover from the Eocene is news to me, but my understanding was that the climate of the Holocene that we are leaving had weather patterns that facilitated a positive feedback with the Amazon rainforest expansion. From my understanding a thriving Amazon also necessarily depended on a desert Sahara as they drive weather/nutrient patterns that helps the Amazon
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- r2ob 1y agothe northern hemisphere burning coal for data centers, electric cars... but, yes, the problem is definitely the deindustrialized southern hemisphere
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- TSiege 1y agoSomething to keep in mind in the comments when talking about climate change and CO2 levels is that it’s not the level so much as the rate. We’re on the path to doubling (or have doubled if you look at CO2 equivalents) global CO2 levels faster than likely any other time in earths entire history. We have the CO2 levels equivalent to a time period when the earths poles didn’t have ice caps and instead forests in the span of about 200 years. Every organism and ecosystem you’ve ever encountered in your life is adapted to an Ice Age climate, but we’ve recreated the conditions of a Hot House earth. Species and ecosystems adapt on much slower time scales. They cannot adapt to changes this abrupt, which means they will necessarily collapse if we do nothing and allow emit CO2. Every other time in earths history that the CO2 levels have rapidly risen it’s lead to a mass extinction. Yes it’s been hotter before but that change happened gradually. It’s like the joke about poison vs medicine, it’s the dose that kills you.
- hammock 1y agoWhat is the temporal resolution of the ice cores or whatever else is being used to measure when the last “hot house” periods were? Because today we are measuring CO2 with minute-level resolution. But I feel like an ice core might be a year at best, probably much worse. Which if I’m right would mean we really don’t know how fast or slow we entered into the last hot period (the rate)
- dr_dshiv 1y agoSo it’s pretty clear we need to adopt solar radiation management r&d asap. Because that is the only feasible way we will stabilize the heat balance in the next few decades.
- po1nt 1y agoWe had just that. But we accidentally banned it by banning sulfur in cargo ship fuel.
- jvanderbot 1y agoI have total fatigue about it. It is true, and also it is terrifying, and also it is completely debilitating to imagine doing anything effective about this.
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoFires are part of a natural short-term Carbon cycle at around 5 years on average. These events have little impact on global climate change, and highlights the absurdity of planting trees for carbon credits. Long-term carbon cycles last about 30000 years, and the majority of climate change is driven from burning old carbon sources deep in the earths crust. Fossil oil is incredibly useful stuff, and it is wasteful burning it as fuel. Something to consider between the floods, fires, droughts, and contrarians. lol =3
- TSiege 1y agoThe Amazon rainforest is not an ecosystem that burns. It’s not adapted to it and it effectively destroys it permanently on a human time scale. It requires wet conditions that are fostered by trees and heavy organic forest litter like leaves. Even if a fire in the Amazon only burns the ground litter it will kill the that part of the forest because the trees have adapted to those leaves being there. The Amazon rainforest is close to a tipping point at which point it will almost entirely die off and convert to Savanah. And if you think fossil fuels are incredibly useful wait till you learn how useful a stable climate has been
- Joel_Mckay 1y agoThe Amazon rain forest creates its own local wet climate, and when that cycle is broken the place will be far drier than many would expect. Mismanagement is ultimately a self-correcting problem, as local extinction events are also natural. If I recall the rain-forest floor organic layer is rather thin when compared to other ecosystems. However, China economic interests in South America agriculture and resources is a complex issue. All world donations sent to help preserve the forest was negligible by comparison. =3
- metalman 1y agoAs soon as we decarbonise we will see an imediate reduction in atmospheric CO² and global temperatures will follow quickly. Given how bad and likely some of the failure modes of climate change are, decarbonisation is our only reasonable way forward that guarantees our continued technological progress as a species, vs a dark age.
- bmitc 1y ago> As soon as we decarbonise And there it is, because when is this going to happen?
- thehappypm 1y agoMy dad used to have a term for this.. “Saint Never’s Day”
- blondie9x 1y agoWe need to halt the AI rollout and focus on using engineering talent to help make sure afforestation works and forests conditions are monitored carefully. We need to make sure that the forests we have can be sustained and the carbon we have emitted can be successfully sequestered back into the forest. Most importantly we need to drastically change our consumption patterns to prevent emissions from continuing to rise.
- s5300 1y ago[dead]