// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
An experiment to glimpse the future Amazon — in pictures
David Lapola is testing a big climate-science unknown: how will the forest cope as atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to rise?
Words by Meghie Rodrigues. Photography by Lalo de Almeida/Panos Pictures
A drone captures one of the AmazonFACE ring structures being built.
A drone captures one of the AmazonFACE ring structures being built.
From above, the patch of Amazon forest looks like an immense tapestry, full of shades and textures. Rising from the green landscape are metal towers that form six rings above the canopy. It is here, 80 kilometres north of Manaus in Brazil, that David Lapola, a climatologist at the State University of Campinas (Unicamp) in Brazil, and his team come to listen to the forest breathe.
The rings mark the site of the Amazon Free-Air CO2 Enrichment Experiment (AmazonFACE), which is set to launch in the next few months. The decade-long project will test how the forest might respond to atmospheres of the future, when rising carbon dioxide levels are likely to affect plant growth and carbon storage.
Climatologist David Lapola stands beneath one of the rings.
Climatologist David Lapola stands beneath one of the rings.
CO2 is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis, the process that plants use to fuel their metabolism. By converting this gas — along with sunlight and water — into sugars and oxygen, trees in the Amazon maintain their growth while removing CO2 from the atmosphere.
According to the sixth assessment report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) — the organization that assesses and synthesizes climate science to inform global policy — an increase in atmospheric CO2 might lead to increased rates of photosynthesis in the forest, removing more carbon from the air and fuelling plant growth1. It’s this cycle, referred to as the ‘fertilization effect’, that Lapola and his team are seeking to test.