Climate scientists spent 15 years sampling the air above the Amazon by plane and found the rainforest may have turned from a carbon sink into a net source.
The Amazon is called the lungs of the planet because it inhales carbon dioxide and exhales oxygen. A study in Nature suggests that breathing may have reversed direction.
The team did not rely on satellites, because the cloud cover is too thick, or on ground stations, because there are too few. Instead it sent planes criss-crossing the forest for 15 years. The finding: even in the wettest years with the least human interference, the Amazon was only a weak carbon source.
What stays with me is the proposed fix: bring deforestation down to zero. It sounds almost dismissively simple.
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