Huge Observation Tower to Monitor Climate Change
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Academic
Scientists and Researchers Are Moving Forward with a Project of Large Proportions in the Center of the Country's Amazon Rainforest to Observe the Effects of Climate Change
ByKayla Ruble
A steel observatory tower standing 325 meters high is now being erected in an area 100 miles outside of the state capital city of Manaus in order to cull data related to weather, carbon gas, winds, and cloud formation.
The brainchild of Brazil's National Institute of Amazonian Research and Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, now seven years in development, has been deployed from southern Brazil on trucks and rafts.
Joining smaller observation towers already in the area, the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory will allow for monitoring changes in air masses with a coverage area of hundreds of miles.
"The measurement point is widely without direct human influence, and therefore ideal to investigate the meaning of the forest region for the chemistry and physics of the atmosphere," the project coordinator for the Max Planck Institute, Jurgen Kesselmeier, said in a statement.
News of the massive tower comes just as the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo is experiencing one of the worst droughts in more than 40 years —reportedlycaused by the disappearance of the Amazon's "flying rivers."
Flying rivers, consisting of moisture emitted from trees and carried by clouds of vapor that rise out of the rainforest, are a major source of rain for south and central Brazil. According to research from Brazil'sFlying Rivers Project, the "flow" of water from the disappearing weather event could be stronger than that of the Amazon River.
As the vapor masses move from the rainforest they are pushed south, but data from Brazil'sNational Space Research Instituteshows these weather patterns did not appear during January and February of this year, the Guardianreported. Some experts have attributed the issue to climate change and deforestation.
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