Weather and Environment Impacts in Brazil Essay -- Brazil Rainforest C

Weather and Environment Impacts in Brazil Manaus is a remote town located in a rainforest, so obviously there is a large influence by the weather on the environment around Manaus. Yearly it receives about 84 inches of rainfallinches of rainfall leading to the first environmental impact of the weather: flooding. Manaus is located near the junction of two major rivers, the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimoes, which combine slightly to the east of Manaus to from the Amazon river. The land is relatively flat, and therefore serves as a flood basin for the rivers. The average yearly fall of the river may be around 33 feet (1). The flooding is a risk to humans in that it may threaten the city and homes, but there is also important ecological benefits that stem from the inundations. The flooding of riverside forest provides important habitat for fish, particularly juveniles which can use the tree’s root structure to avoid predation (1). A potentially more controversial result of the flooding is that fields which are inundated are an important source of atmospheric methane, as well as good nursery grounds (1) Methane is a greenhouse gas, which may lead some individuals to call for flood control of the plains in an effort to limit greenhouse gas emission in Brazil. There is a dam built up river of Manaus, but there have been problems with Amazonian dams. Because of the rainforest large amounts of plant detritus ends up in the rivers, where it gets caught behind the dams and causes sedimentation, similar to silts in American rivers (2). Unlike north American sedimentation ho wever, the climate in Brazil allows for rapid breakdown of the plant detritus, acidifying the water and releasing large amounts of Methane into the air. The dams reservo... ... become. Fires also put particulate mater into the air, which is classified as a pollutant. References http://www.op.dlr.de/ne-hf/SRL-2/p44721_mana2.html accessed 11/29/04 http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/south_america/brazil/about_destin/nature.html accessed 11/29/04 http://nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu/~arm/amazonFires.html accessed 11/29/04 http://www.ipcc.ch accessed 11/29/04 Bruijnzeel, L.A. Hydrological functions of tropical forests: not seeing the soil for the trees? Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 104:1 185-228 Durieux, L.; Machad, L.A.T.; Laurent, H. The impact of deforestation on cloud cover over the Amazon arc of deforestation. Remote Sensing of Environment 86:1 132-140 Lamb, H.H. Climate Change and the Modern World. New York, NY. Routledge 1995 Somerville, R.C.J. The Forgiving Air. Berkley, CA. University of California Press 1996