A new project plans to track the effect of greenhouse gases on the Amazonian rain forest. This project, the Amazonian Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), comes from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and the Nationale Institute for Amazon Research (INPA), located in Brazil.
Researchers from Brazil and Germany joined forces to attempt to find out more about the concentration of greenhouse gases in an area with very little direct human contact. They constructed a 325 meter (1,070 foot) tower in the Amazonian rain forest, slightly north of Manaus, Brazil, that will take measurements of greenhouse gases and record weather from a high point.
"The tower will help us answer innumerable questions related to global climate change," said Paulo Artaxo, from the University of Sao Paulo, who is working on the Brazilian side of the project.
From the height of the tower, the measurement devices can track greenhouse gases over a few hundred kilometers (over a hundred miles) of land. The Amazon rain forest is the largest continuous rain forest in the world. Studying how greenhouse gases form and affect the climate here, where the area is mostly free of human intervention, can give researchers important tools to further research about greenhouse gases in the rest of the world.
"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," said Jurgen Kesselmeier, one of the German researchers, on the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz website.
The Amazonian rain forest is one of the world's largest absorbers of carbon dioxide. However, new troubling research released by the World Meteorological Organization suggests that the Earth's ability to absorb carbon dioxide is slowing. The more we know about the Amazon rain forest and how it absorbs carbon dioxide, the more knowledge scientists will have as we battle climate change in the upcoming years.
The tower's construction is estimated to cost a total of 8.4 million euros, or over 10 million US dollars. Germany and Brazil are sharing the cost of the tower evenly.
The ATTO project has been in the works for about five years, since 2009. The team began construction on the tower one month ago on August 15. They plan to have the structure completed in a few months.
This new tower is getting built close to an already existent, smaller tower that has been measuring greenhouse gases, ozone and weather since 2011. The research team is planning to combine the new tower with the structure of the old one.
The team also hopes to use the data gathered to learn more about ways to conserve the Amazonian rain forest.
