Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Nick Ball John Niven Tommy Wirkola
Storyline: A dysfunctional couple head to a remote cabin to reconnect, but each has intentions to kill the other. Before they can carry out their plans, unexpected visitors arrive and they faced with a greater danger.
Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13109952/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_3
A new index shows that the world’s rainforests are responding differently
to threats like a warming climate and deforestation.
Scientists from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and
other international research institutions have created a tropical rainforest
vulnerability index. It will detect and evaluate the vulnerability of these
diverse ecosystems to two main categories of threats: the warming and drying
climate, and the consequences of human land use such as deforestation and
fragmentation from encroaching roads, agricultural fields, and logging.
The index shows that the world’s three major rainforest areas have
different degrees of susceptibility to these threats. The Amazon Basin in South
America is extremely vulnerable to both climate change and changes in human
land use. The Congo Basin in Africa is undergoing the same warming and drying
trends as the Amazon but is more resilient. Most Asian rainforests appear to be
suffering more from changes in land use than from the changing climate.
“Rainforests are perhaps the most endangered habitat on Earth – the canary
in the climate-change coal mine,” said Sassan Saatchi, a JPL scientist and lead
author of the new study published July 23
in the journal OneEarth.
These diverse ecosystems are home to more than half of the planet’s life
forms and contain more than half of all the carbon in land vegetation. They
serve as a natural brake on the rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from
fossil fuel burning because they “breathe in” carbon dioxide and store carbon
as they grow.
But in the last century, 15 to 20% of rainforests have been cut down, and
another 10% have been degraded. Today’s warmer climate, which has led to
increasingly frequent and widespread forest fires, is limiting the forests’
capacity to absorb carbon dioxide as they grow while also increasing the rate
at which forests release carbon to the atmosphere as they decay or burn.
The National Geographic Society convened a team of scientists and
conservationists in 2019 to develop the new index. The index is based on
multiple satellite observations and ground-based data from 1982 through 2018,
such as Landsat and the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, covering
climate conditions, land use, and forest characteristics.
When an ecosystem can no longer recover from stress as quickly or as
completely as it used to, that’s a sign of its vulnerability. The researchers
correlated data on stressors, such as temperature, water availability, and the
extent of degradation with data on how well the forests are functioning: the
amount of live biomass, the amount of carbon dioxide plants were absorbing, the
amount of water the forests transpire into the atmosphere, the intactness of a
forest’s biodiversity, and more. The correlations show how different forests
have responded to stressors and how vulnerable the forests are now.
The team then used statistical models to extend trends over time, looking
for areas with increasing vulnerability and possible tipping points where
rainforests will transition into dry forests or grassy plains.
The data from the tropical rainforest vulnerability index provides
scientists with an opportunity to perform more in-depth examinations of natural
rainforest processes, such as carbon storage and productivity, changes in
energy and water cycles, and changes in biodiversity. Those studies will help
scientists understand whether there are tipping points and what they are likely
to be. The information can also help policy makers who are planning
for conservation and forest restoration activities.
Jane J. Lee / Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
Written by Carol Rasmussen
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/index-ranks-rainforests-vulnerability-to-climate-and-human-impacts
Source: (1) Counting carbon -
YouTube
It's been a lengthy and exhausting road trip through Wallonia's tree-shaded back roads, and now that night has come, Sarah and Bram need to make a stop for a bathroom break. Soon, the couple finds a remote public restroom in the middle of the gloomy thick woods, unaware, however, that someone, or better still, something is lurking in the shadows. Should they wait until morning or should they just go ahead and use it? After all, who knows if they'll get another opportunity. Obviously, everything in life is only a matter of choice.—Nick Riganas
Director: Maarten Groen
Writer: Nils Vleugels
