Giant tower to monitor climate

change in the Amazon

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Published on 27/10/2014, 4:47pm

Taller than the Eiffel Tower, the observatory will capture vitaldata
climate change = actor, doing
on how climate change is impacting the rainforest
something, acting upon

Pic: CIFOR/Flickr

By Jan Rocha
In the Amazon, everything is big the trees, the rivers, the snakes,
and the statistics that measure everything in numbers of football
fields or areas the size of entire countries.
Now one of the biggest towers in the world taller than the Eiffel Tower
in Paris and the Chrysler Building in Chicago is about to rise above the
rainforest.

The purpose of the 325-metre (1,066 feet) Amazon Tall Tower

Observatory (ATTO) is to gather vital information on how climate change
is affecting the Amazon ecosystem and other humid tropical areas, using
climate models.
The research project is being run by BrazilsNational Institute for
Amazonia Research(INPA), and theMax Planck Institute for Chemistry,
Germany. As one of the project directors, Paulo Ataxo, of the University
of So Paulo, explains: The tower will help us answer innumerable
questions related to global climate change.
Jointly financed by the Brazilian and German governments, the ATTO
which has taken seven years to plan and build is located 100 miles
from the city of Manaus. The steel girders had to be transported 4,000 km
by road and river from the factory in southern Brazil, and finally up a
dirt track into the heart of the forest.
Monitoring network
The ATTO, adding to a network of smaller observation towers already in
the area, will be able to monitor without direct human influence
changes in air masses over an area of hundreds of miles.
It is expected to be in operation for at least 20 years, measuring the wind,
humidity, carbon absorption, cloud formation and meteorological
patterns in the soil, tree tops, and the air above, adding to the growing
body of research showing how vital it is to stop deforestation.
Philip Fearnside, INPA research professor who has been studying the
rainforest for over 40 years, says that the loss of natural tree cover is
influencing the delicate environmental equilibrium of the region, and of
the rest of the country. He says: Among other services, theforest
recycles water, which is critical for the rains in So Paulo, stores carbon,
avoiding the worsening of global warming, and maintains biodiversity.
there is a thing called carbon, same with global warming; carbon --> global warming

A recent study by Brazilian, Canadian and German scientists from So

Paulo Universities UNESP and USP, Toronto University, and theHemholtz
Centre for Environmental Researchin Germany concluded that the
deforestation of tropical forests emits at least 20% more CO2than
previously thought.

The study, published in theNature Communicationsmagazine, used

remote sensoring, the ecology of the countryside, and modelling of the
forest dynamic to develop a new approach that included the previously
uncalculated loss of biomass on the edges of forest fragments.
The Brazilian government claims it is reducing deforestation. But,
according to Environment Ministry figures, the vast area known as
Amaznia Legal, which covers the whole of the Amazon basin, has
already lost almost a fifth (18.2%) of its total area of 5 million sq km
that is, around 900,000 sq km.
Another recent study a three-yearAmazalert research projectbegun in
2011 by 14 European and South American institutes, including the
Universities of Leeds and Edinburgh and the UK Met Office has
concluded that if present policies continue, the future will be chaotic.
Amazalert project looked at the impacts of deforestation and climate
change on the Amazon up to 2050.
Human impacts
While there is a constant stream of research on the climate and
vegetation of the rainforest, to which ATTO will be contributing, there is
much less research and information about the role of human beings and
society in the Amazon.
Amazalert found that violence and unplanned growth in the towns on
the edges of the Amazon region are also threatening its integrity.
Among Brazils 50 towns and cities with the highest murder rates per
100,000 inhabitants, 12 are located in the so-called Arc of Deforestation,
which runs around the southern and eastern borders of the rainforest.
The report says that violence in these towns has reached the level of
civil war.
For Amazalert collaborator Andrea Coelho, researcher at theInstitute for
the Economic, Social and Environmental Development of Par
state(IDESP), the problem is that large-scale mining projects, the paving
of roads, and the construction of hydroelectric dams attract lots of
people, for whom there is no infrastructure.

When the projects are finished, the workers stay on and become
goldminers, extractivists, or land-grabbers. Many are living in miserable
conditions, and so criminality erupts.
The hugeBelo Monte dam, being built on the Xingu river, is an example.
In 2007, there were four cases of drug trafficking in surrounding areas.
Last year, there were 238.
This article was produced by the Climate News Network

Related posts:
1. Climate change hurting Amazon rainforest warns Nasa
2. Amazon destruction could cut US rainfall by 50%
3. Amazon deforestation could reduce tropical rainfall and affect
Brazils hydro plans
4. Amazon deforestation halted through local action
Read more on: Nature | Amazon | Brazil | Deforestation
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