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Storms and Tree Death in the Amazon

By gregladen on July 13, 2010.

I've actually studied the relationship between storm activities and tree falls in a rain forest, so when I saw this, I thought it was quite interesting.

Study Finds Amazon Storm Killed Half a Billion Trees

A single, huge, violent storm that swept across the whole Amazon forest in 2005 killed half a billion trees, according to a new study funded by NASA and Tulane University, New Orleans.

While storms have long been recognized as a cause of Amazon tree loss, this study is the first to actually quantify losses from a storm. And the losses are much greater than previously suspected, say the study's authors, which include research scientist Sassan Saatchi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The work suggests that storms may play a larger role in the dynamics of Amazon forests than previously recognized, they add.

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This

...violent storm that swept across the whole Amazon forest in 2005 killed half a billion trees,

is amazing, and made me think two things.

a) It must have been one hell of a storm
b) I really can't picture the amount of area covered by these forests

Yep, the Amazonian forests don't really experience high winds very often...When there is even a moderate wind in the jungle I get scared of all the falling trees!

According to this - http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-232
the storm took place around 17 Jan 2005 - so it was NOT associated with the infamous Brazilian hurricane of 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Catarina)
Man, what IS going on with the weather?

This also reminds me of the MPR story on the 4 Jul 1999 "Big Blow" in the Boundary Waters Wilderness:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/07/01/bwca_blowdown_a…
Maybe not as devastating as the South American event, but 600 sq. miles of forest down very quickly.

By Sean McCorkle (not verified) on 14 Jul 2010 #permalink