I wonder how the Global Warming Deniers are going to twist this?
The BBC is reporting the results of an ongoing, 20 year study of the Amazon Rain Forest, and it's ability to sequester carbon dioxide.
Amazon carbon sink effect 'slows'
Scientists have sounded the alarm after spotting changes in the environment in Brazil's tropical rain forests.
They say they have found worrying signs that the forests may become less able to absorb the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming.
Ooops.
The Amazon accounts for more than half of the world's remaining rainforests.
They are thought to limit the greenhouse effect of global warming by storing carbon and hence reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"It is clear that this is not random variation. Rainforest dynamics are changing," said William Laurance, of the Smithsonian Tropical Institute, who led the study.
Plant growth requires carbon dioxide, and the researchers speculate that the Amazon trees are getting an extra boost from the rising levels of the gas caused by vehicle exhausts, factory emissions and other industrial processes.
"Undisturbed Amazonian forests appear to be functioning as an important carbon sink, helping to slow global warming, but pervasive changes in tree communities could modify this effect," the study says.
"In particular, increases in forest carbon storage may be slowed by the tendency of canopy and emergent trees to produce wood of reduced density as their size and growth rate increases, and by the decline of densely wooded sub-canopy trees."
Quoting without commentary is frowed upon, here 'bouts, but there is very little I can add to this horror story, wrapped in scientific observation, and carefully analyzed by some Reality Based powerhouses.
Just don't burn your leaves, this fall. That frees all of the carbon dioxide, stored during the Spring and Summer, to rise to the stratosphere and create yet another closed window in the Green House we are building.
Oh, and kiss The Golden Age goodby, while our political class protects their corporate doners at the expense of the future of Earth.