(Press-News.org) Analysing satellite data spanning the past 20 years, the research team based at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge examined how vegetation has been changing along the Pacific coast of Peru and northern Chile. This area is known for its unique and delicate arid and semi-arid environments.
The analysis revealed that certain areas experienced positive vegetation growth, known as greening, while others displayed negative trends, referred to as browning. Unsurprisingly, the changes in vegetation are influenced by things like farming and urban development or change in land use practices.
But more interestingly this study, published in MDPI Remote Sensing, revealed the discovery of a huge section of the West Slope of the Andes undergoing significant greening in the past 20 years. This section, which extends from Northern Peru to Northern Chile, spanning a length of about 2000km, has seen its vegetation growing significantly over time. This greening trend varies with altitude, with different vegetation types at different elevations.
The research team, consisting of mathematicians, geographers, biologists, and earth scientists, used satellite images from 2000 to 2020 to observe changes in vegetation over time in this area. They plotted 450 data points and developed a mathematical model to remove artificial variations (such as cloudy days) and seasonality, and used statistical analysis to ensure that they were only analysing areas with a significant trend.
“It took three years to sort the methodology and the statistical model,” said Hugo Lepage, mathematician at the Cavendish laboratory and first author of the study. “We really needed to bulletproof it to make sure that something was really happening on a massive scale, and it was not just a fluke.”
To verify what they were seeing in the data, the researchers conducted numerous filed trips to make observations on the ground to corroborate their numerical statements.
“We started with a very local area to study the impact of mining on local vegetation,” explained Eustace Barnes, a geographer in the Cavendish Laboratory’s Environmental Physics Group, which ran the research. “To our surprise, the data was suggesting that the area was greening instead of browning. So, we zoomed out and realised other areas were also greening on large scale. When we went to check on the ground, we observed a similar trend.”
Beyond the empirical observation of the greening strip itself, the researchers were struck by its surprising features.
“First, the strip ascends as we look southward, going from 170-780 m in northern Peru to 2600-4300 m in the south of Peru”, explained Barnes. “This is counterintuitive, as we would expect the surface temperatures to drop both when moving south and ascending in altitude.”
Even more surprisingly, this huge greening strip does not align with the climate zones established by the Köppen-Geiger classification - the widely used, vegetation-based, empirical climate classification system, whereas the greening and browning trends in the coastal deserts and high Andes, do match well.
“Indeed, in northern Peru, the greening strip mostly lies in the climate zone corresponding to the hot arid desert,” said Lepage. “As we scan the strip going south, it ascends to lie mostly in the hot arid steppe and finally traverses to lie in the cold arid steppe. This did not match what we expected based on the climate in those regions.”
The results of this study have far-reaching implications for environmental management and policymaking in the region. Although the exact cause or resulting consequences of this greening are not known, any large change (30-60% index increase) in vegetation will necessarily have an impact on ecosystems and the environment.
“The Pacific slope provides water for two-thirds of the country, and this is where most of the food for Peru is coming from too,” said Barnes. “This rapid change in vegetation, and to water level and ecosystems, will inevitably have an impact on water and agricultural planning management.”
The researchers believe their findings will contribute significantly to the scientific community's understanding of the complex interactions between climate change and delicate ecosystems in arid and semi-arid environments.
“This is a warning sign, like the canary in the mine. There is nothing we can do to stop changes at such a large scale. But knowing about it will help to plan better for the future,” concluded Lepage.
This research was carried out by the Environmental Physics Group led by Prof. Crispin Barnes and funded by Universidad Nacional de Cañete (UNDC), dpto Lima, Peru.
END
The Pacific slope of Peru is greening, and this is not good news
2023-07-21
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Dark SRF experiment at Fermilab demonstrates ultra-sensitivity for dark photon searches
2023-07-21
Scientists working on the Dark SRF experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have demonstrated unprecedented sensitivity in an experimental setup used to search for theorized particles called dark photons.
Researchers trapped ordinary, massless photons in devices called superconducting radio frequency cavities to look for the transition of those photons into their hypothesized dark sector counterparts. The experiment has put the world’s best constraint on the dark photon existence in a specific mass range, as ...
Extracellular vesicles could aid spread of scleroderma-caused fibrosis throughout body
2023-07-21
Extracellular vesicles, responsible for cell-to-cell communication, might be a driver of fibrosis in systemic sclerosis, according to a recent paper in Arthritis and Rheumatology.
Characterized by stiff and hardening tissue known as fibrosis, systemic sclerosis – also known as scleroderma – can affect the skin as well as other organs. Most research has focused on the pathology and starting point of fibrosis, but researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina are focusing ...
Ricardo Valerdi named Head of Systems and Industrial Engineering at the University of Arizona
2023-07-21
Ricardo Valerdi was selected as head of the Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering after a national search that yielded a highly competitive pool of candidates after serving as interim head for the 2022-2023 academic year.
“When I joined SIE 12 years ago, it looked very different,” said Valerdi. “Today we have a new generation of talented and ambitious faculty who are impacting our society’s Grand Challenges in manufacturing, transportation, aerospace ...
BioIVT to discuss its pivotal role in liquid biopsy research at the AACC Annual Scientific Meeting and Clinical Lab Expo
2023-07-21
BioIVT, a global research partner and biospecimen solutions provider for drug and diagnostic development, today announced that it will highlight the integral role it is playing in liquid biopsy research at the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Annual Scientific Meeting and Clinical Lab Expo. This conference will be held from July 23-27 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA.
“Liquid biopsy research can revolutionize the way we detect, diagnose, and treat diseases. However, several issues need to be resolved before it can reach its full potential. They include adopting ...
Father’s psychiatric diagnosis increases risk of preterm birth, study reports
2023-07-21
Babies are more likely to be born prematurely when either their father or mother has had a psychiatric diagnosis, according to a study conducted by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Karolinska Institutet and published July 20 in the open access journal PLOS Medicine.
The research shows, for the first time, that the risk of preterm birth is higher in infants whose father or mother has a psychiatric diagnosis than in those whose parents do not, and higher still when both parents have such diagnoses.
Preterm ...
Multi-society statement on US Supreme Court ruling on students for fair admissions
2023-07-21
ROCKVILLE, MD—JULY 19, 2023 – As organizations representing a wide range of scientific, engineering, and mathematical disciplines, we will not be deterred by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on race considerations in college and university admissions.
America’s inherent strength and economic competitiveness among nations is its domestic and international talent across every race, ethnicity, gender, and geography. To meet current and emerging job demands and retain our research and development leadership globally, we must broaden who participates in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. Doing so will improve lives, advance our nation’s living standards, ...
Harnessing machine learning for early cancer detection in primary care
2023-07-21
“[Machine learning] has the potential to transform early cancer detection in primary care [...]”
BUFFALO, NY- July 21, 2023 – A new editorial paper was published in Oncoscience (Volume 10) on June 9, 2023, entitled, “Transforming early cancer detection in primary care: harnessing the power of machine learning.”
Cancer remains a significant global health burden, and early detection plays a crucial role in improving patient outcomes. Primary care settings serve as frontline gatekeepers, providing an opportunity for early detection through symptom assessment and ...
New study uncovers potential risk of arsenic release from sediment under organic matter influence
2023-07-21
Researchers from the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences have conducted a study to assess the impact of environmental factors and microbial communities on the mobilization of arsenic (As). The findings, published in Volume 15 of the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, reveal important insights into the biogeochemical processes involved in As release. The study focused on processes such as desorption, reduction, complexation, and co-precipitation that affect the As behaviour in the environment. The interaction ...
$20 million awarded to lead next century of heart disease and stroke scientific research
2023-07-21
DALLAS, July 21, 2023 — More than 100 scientists from across the U.S. are receiving special grants to support their research work in finding innovative solutions to fight heart disease and stroke. The grants, totaling $20 million, are part of the Second Century of Science Initiative of the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary organization dedicated to a world of longer, healthier lives. The financial awards are announced as the Association, the largest non-government supporter of heart and brain health research in the U.S., prepares to celebrate ...
BESSY II: Surface analysis of catalyst particles in aqueous solutions
2023-07-21
Green hydrogen can be produced directly in a photoelectrochemical cell, splitting water with solar energy. However, this requires the development of super-efficient photoelectrodes that need to combine many talents at the same time: They must be excellent at converting sunlight into electricity, remain stable in acidic or basic water, act as catalysts to promote the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen, and be cheap, abundant and non-toxic. The large material class of metal oxides comes into question. However, it is difficult to find out what really happens at the interfaces ...