Global Warming

'Flying Rivers' of the Amazon Dry Up

Unprecedented drought parching São Paulo and many other areas of Brazil has been brought on by the drying up of what a leading climatologist calls the "flying rivers” of the Amazon.

A combination of deforestation and climate change has reduced the role of the Amazon rain forest, which used to release billions of gallons of water vapor from trees into the low-level winds.

Those moist breezes typically bring crucial rainfall to other parts of the country. But the flying rivers failed to arrive during January and February for the first time since 2010.

A real-time deforestation detection system revealed that after declining for two years, the felling of the Amazon rain forest for agricultural purposes rose by 10 percent between August 2013 and July 2014.

This, and ongoing global warming, appear to have disrupted the Brazilian climate at the peril of the country’s established farmers.

“Destroying the Amazon to advance the agricultural frontier is like shooting yourself in the foot," Brazilian climate scientist Antonio Nobre told the journal Valor Economica.

“The Amazon is a gigantic hydrological pump that brings the humidity of the Atlantic Ocean into the continent and guarantees the irrigation of the region.”

Moisture released by trees in the Amazon has been cut by deforestation, creating drought elsewhere in Brazil.