Amazon Rainforest

• 60% in Brazil, 13% in Peru, Manaus the capital of the region, Amazon River runs through it
• Home to 1 in 10 species on Earth
• Almost 7 million sq km, area larger than Europe
• 25,000 sq km a year at its highest are removed (2000 trees a minute)
• 100 billion tonnes of carbon stored, more than 10 times annual fossil fuels emissions
• No seasons because everyday the sun strikes the same angle (solar insolation more concentrated)
• Latosols (soils) infertile, rich in iron, acidic, experience leaching, weathering and little organic matter
• Ground and atmosphere heated up, air rises, condenses and rainfall occurs - convectional rainfall
• 60% of rainfall recycled into atmosphere through evapotranspiration due to high temperatures
• Dense vegetation leads to high interception rates, 20% of intercepted rain evaporated
• Most of Amazon Basin made of crystalline (igneous) rocks, impermeable so lots of runoff
• Other parts of sedimentary rocks (sandstone, limestone) permeable so water stored in aquifers
• Lowlands - throughflow and groundflow, in very flat areas (Pantanal) wetlands form
• NPP high (2500 g / m2 / yr) - amount of CO2 taken in by vegetation during photosynthesis
• More carbon captured and sequestered into biosphere then released into atmosphere
• Carbon sink because more carbon absorbed (24 billion tonnes) than released (17 billion)
• 60% of all carbon above ground, a large tree stores 180 tonnes per hectare above ground, 40 tonnes in the roots
• Limestone outcrops in the west contain carbonates and store carbon on a regional scale
• Up to 28,000 species expected to become extinct by 2025 during deforestation
• 60% cattle ranching, 33% small-scale subsistence agriculture -> 80% of Brazil's beef is in Amazon, exported
• 95% of deforestation in Brazilian Amazon within 50km of trans-Amazonian highway
• The highway allows timber and mineral extraction, and the building of hydroelectric dams
• Tucurui dam completed in 1984 flooded 22,500 km2 of forest
• Itaipu dam floods 1350km2 of rainforest but provides nearly 20% of Brazil's power and 80% of Paraguay's
• Deforestation reduces water storage in trees, soils, rocks and atmosphere, less evapotranspiration and therefore precipitation
• Converting rainforest to grassland increases run-off by a factor of 27, and climate change
• Trees extract moisture from soil, intercept rainfall and release to atmosphere (transpiration) stabilising albedo
• Cycle causes humidity, cloud formation and heavy convectional rainfall
• In April 2014, Madeira Basin flooded, 60 people died, 5000 homes flooded
• Projections of future deforestation predict 20% decline in regional rainfall