Amazon rainforest trees are resisting climate change by getting fatter from CO2 in the atmosphere

By Sascha Pare published 22 hours 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.



An enormous tree in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest with a thick trunk.

Amazonian trees are absorbing more CO2 from the atmosphere and getting fatter as a result, scientists say. (Image credit: Christian Vinces/Getty Images)

Trees of all sizes across the Amazon rainforest are getting fatter due to climate change, a new study shows.

Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere have created a more resource-rich environment for plants in the Amazon, leading to an average 3.3% increase in the circumference of trees at their base every decade since the 1970s, researchers have found.

"We knew that the total amount of carbon stored in the trees of intact Amazonian forests has increased," study co-author Tim Baker, a professor of tropical ecology and conservation at the University of Leeds in the U.K., said in a statement. "What this new study shows is that all sizes of trees have grown larger over the same period — the whole forest has changed."

This fattening is "good news," because it suggests Amazonian trees are more resilient to global warming than previously thought, study co-author Beatriz Marimon, a professor and tropical plant ecologist at Mato Grosso State University in Brazil, said in the statement.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/amazon-rainforest-trees-are-resisting-climate-change-by-getting-fatter-from-co2-in-the-atmosphere

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Biden marks his climate legacy during Amazon visit, asserting 'nobody' can reverse it
November 17, 20244:56 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

By
Asma Khalid

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MANAUS, Brazil — President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to roll back President Biden's clean energy incentives when he takes office in January. But on Sunday, Biden used a trip to the Amazon to defiantly assert that his legacy on addressing climate change could not be easily reversed.

Nossa Senhora do Livramento community, located in the Manaus region of Brazil's Amazonas state. The record drought that hit the Rio Negro affected the entire community, leading many residents to leave.

"Some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that's underway in America, but nobody — nobody — can reverse it. Nobody," Biden said in remarks from a rainforest preserve.

Biden is the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Amazon, a quick stop that was meant as a capstone for his work on climate, made between two summits he is attending in South America.

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President Biden flies over the Amazon in his Marine One helicopter during his visit to Manaus, Brazil, on Nov. 17, 2024.

Saul Loeb/AFP

He took an aerial tour of a region that has been through two years of drought, and looked at areas where trees had been illegally harvested. Then, he walked along a dirt path through the edge of the rainforest, meeting with indigenous leaders and Nobel laureate Dr. Carlos Nobre, who studies how climate change affects the Amazon.

. . .

Trump left the Paris accord. Biden rejoined it. Now, Trump is poised to quit it again.

On Biden's first day in office, he signed an order for the United States to rejoin the Paris climate agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Trump had withdrawn from the accord when he first took office in 2017 — and he has promised to leave it again when he takes office in January.

More:
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/17/nx-s1-5191837/biden-amazon-rainforest-climate-trump




Joe Biden mentioned Chico Mendez in one of the two short videos above. Here is a 9 minute summary of Chico Mendez' shortened life: