The fires in the Amazon rainforest started to melt glaciers in the Andes, more than 1000 miles away, as per new research.
A study has also found that the scoot from the fires in the jungles of Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia increased the melting process in the Andes by up to 14% a year. This entire process is caused by the main wind direction between October and August when most of the fires occurred when soot was blown towards the north area of the mountain ranges, where it merely lands as snow.
Dr. Newton de Magalhaes Neto, who is the lead author of the study, stated that there is great potential to increase glacier melting as snow, which is darkened by black carbon or dust particles, which reflect less light.
Another study done by the Federal University of Rio Grande does Sul found that some areas that are covered by glaciers from the Andes have dropped by almost a half since the 1970s.
The new study was published in the journal called Scientific Reports and is based on a computer model of the southwestern Amazonian, which is burning.
Dr. Neto used the data he got from wildfires between the years 2000 and 2016, together with the info on the movement of smoke plumes, snowfall and rain, and, of course, glacier melting. Researchers have investigated the reduction in the albedo effect, too, where light surfaces reflect more heat than dark because there’s black carbon present, and there’s also dust in snow. The high concentrations of dust (of around 100 parts per million) had its part, too – it increased annual melting by 11% to 13%, and melting rose from 12% to 14% in the presence of black carbon. All of these findings show the impact that the Amazon biomass burning had on the dust found in the snow.
