Flying Rivers: The essential lifelines that keep Amazon Forest alive

Flying rivers, often called ariel rivers, are a natural occurrence essential to the health of the Amazon Forest basin.

They have existed for a long time, and often become a picturesque scene for travellers. These clouds are actually vapour trails and essential to the floating river phenomenon. These atmospheric waterways are vital in maintaining the balance of ecosystems and are a key factor in the forest's thermoregulation.

The Amazon, the planet's largest tropical forest, is renowned for its humid climate, which owes much to the crucial role of flying rivers. These rivers carry up to 20 billion tons of water daily, extracted from trees in the form of vapour through evapotranspiration. This emphasises the significance of flying rivers in preserving the health and productivity of the Amazon basin's forests.

Flying rivers are crucial for rainfalls

Flying rivers transport water vapour in the direction of mountains, generating a suction that draws in additional humidity from the seas and drenches the Amazon with heavy rain. These rivers extend thousands of kilometres throughout the Amazon's forested regions.

Flying rivers were discovered in 2006 by engineer and pilot Gerard Moss, who then collaborated with Professor Antonio Nobre on the "Rios Voadores" research project. Their websites conclude that the majority of Brazil's rainfall in the Central West, Southeast, and South is caused by this phenomenon.

Lesser flying rivers linked to deforestation

Like other natural phenomena, flying rivers are also in danger due to climate change and it is directly linked to the increasing deforestation in the Amazon Forest basin. In the study published by the journal PNAS in August 2022, the researchers said that as climate change and global warming threaten to alter rainfall patterns on a worldwide scale, it might deplete the Amazon basin's moisture stores and decrease its forest cover.

FAQs.

Q1- How many trees are cut down in the Amazon Forest basin every second?
This enormous rainforest lost 18 trees on average every second, as of 2021.

Q2- Where do flying rivers come from?
Flying rivers originate from sources of moisture, such as the oceans, seas, and other water bodies.