Drought threatens Amazon basin

[AnOhioan]

Paul Brown in Manaus
Monday July 17, 2006
The Guardian

On the vast expanse of water where the silty Amazon mingles with the coffee-coloured Rio Negro, Amazon Indians and church leaders floated out yesterday to bless the waters and protect them from drought.

Such a prospect seems incredible in Manaus, a Brazilian port city where both the Amazon and Rio Negro are more than five miles wide and 300 metres deep. At more than 1,000 miles from the sea, the two streams can be navigated by oceangoing ships and already dwarf every other river in the world in terms of volume.

But last year the worst drought in more than a century hit the Amazon basin, drying up tributaries more than a mile wide and prompting Brazil to declare a state of emergency across the entire region.
Tens of thousands were cut off as rivers that are the main means of transportation were turned into mudflats and grasslands, leaving boats stranded among millions of rotting fish on the baked mud.

Locals hoped the drought was a once-in-a-generation event, but already there are signs that the extreme conditions of last year are returning. In the Acre region close to Brazil's borders with Bolivia and Peru, where last year's drought began, sandbanks have started appearing in rivers which are normally larger than any of their European counterparts.

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/brazil/story/0,,1822208,00.html?gusrc=rss

[babylonsister]

1. This was ongoing last summer as well, so I can only

imagine how much worse it's gotten:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/drought-leaves-amazon-basin-in-state-of-crisis/2005/10/11/1128796527055.html&h=284&w=430&sz=18&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=5Oe5zKi1M6vFNM:&tbnh=83&tbnw=126&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddrought%252BAmazon%2Bbasin%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26sa%3DG

Drought leaves Amazon basin in state of crisis
By Terry Wade in Manaquiri, Brazil
October 12, 2005


The worst drought in more than 40 years is damaging the world's biggest rainforest, plaguing the Amazon basin with fires, sickening river dwellers with tainted drinking water and killing fish by the millions as streams dry up.

"What's awful for us is that all these fish have died, and when the water returns there will be barely any more," said Donisvaldo Mendonca da Silva, a fisherman.

Nearby, scores of piranhas shook in spasms in what was left of the once flowing Parana de Manaquiri river, an Amazon tributary. Thousands of rotting fish lined its dry banks.

The governor of Amazonas, a state bigger than the Northern Territory, has declared 16 municipalities in crisis as the two-month-long drought strands river dwellers who cannot find food or sell crops.

Some scientists blame higher ocean temperatures due to global warming - also linked to the recent string of unusually deadly storms in the United States and Central America.

Rising air in the North Atlantic, which fuels storms, may have caused air above the Amazon to descend and prevented cloud formations and rainfall, some scientists say.

"If the warming of the North Atlantic is the smoking gun, it really shows how the world is changing," said Dan Nepstad, an ecologist at the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, funded by US government and private grants.

"The Amazon is a canary in a coalmine for the Earth."

Deforestation may also have contributed to the drought because cutting down trees cuts moisture in the air, increasing sunlight penetration onto land.

Other scientists say severe droughts are normal.

An hour from where it joins the Rio Negro to form the Amazon River, the Rio Solimoes is so low that kilometres of exposed riverbank have turned into dunes as winds whip up sandstorms.

Another big tributary, Rio Madeira, is so dry that ships carrying fuel from Manaus cannot reach the capital of Rondonia state without scraping the bottom.

more...

[soothsayer]

2. When you cut down a rain forest, the rain goes elsewhere

It's true. Dunno if that has anything to do with this, or if it's a normal drought.