The Amazon Rainforest is a tangle of multiple layers of vegetation stretching from the ground to the top of the forest canopy. Layer upon layer of leaves intercept sunlight, inhale carbon dioxide, and exhale oxygen and water vapor. In 2007, a team of scientists discovered that behind its evergreen exterior, the Amazon was hiding a seasonal secret: large, previously unknown swings in leaf surface area between the wet season and the dry season.
Published May 23, 2007
Satellite measurements of heavy isotopes in water vapor help solve a mystery of the rainforest.
Published Oct 31, 2017
For many atmospheric scientists, the Amazon Rainforest is a natural cloud laboratory. The vegetation exhales tremendous amounts of water vapor that drapes over the forest as a thick mist. The mist blends with layers of clouds that can reach from the treetops to altitudes of 10 kilometers. When the air over the Amazon is clear, the clouds that form over the forest are so like maritime clouds that scientists have referred to the Amazon as “the Green Ocean.” But increasingly, the air over the Amazon is not clear, at least not during the annual dry season.
Published Mar 11, 2008
The Kalahari Basin in southern Africa experiences dramatic differences in vegetation greenness between the the dry and wet seasons. In the dry season, only the inland Okavango Delta remains lush.
Published Apr 30, 2009
A new analysis shows how changes in the angle between the Sun and a satellite sensor interact to create the illusion of Amazon forest greening during the dry season.
Published Feb 7, 2014
The summer dry season has lengthened by about 10 days per decade within rainforest boundaries.
Published Jul 3, 2019
For elephants roaming the savanna in Kenya, drought can be a matter of life and death.
Published May 3, 2017
Flowing down a gentle gradient, the river often spills onto floodplains during the rainy season.
Published Apr 6, 2013
As the wet season approached in South America, intense drought still ran deep across the Amazon basin and much of Brazil.
Published Dec 1, 2016
