Thread by @WIRED

The Amazon is on fire and it’s turning into a global catastrophe. At the core of Brazil's out-of-control fires: deforestation. Here’s a bit of the science behind what’s happening: 1/ wired.trib.al/jYqpY2i

Being a rainforest, the Amazon isn’t supposed to burn out of control, unlike California’s drier landscape, which is built to burn and burn explosively. Yet here we are. 2/ wired.trib.al/p5DwpuH

The fires in the Amazon are concentrated along transportation corridors, areas of recent settlement, and agricultural activity. That means this is humanity’s doing. 3/ wired.trib.al/jYqpY2i

Since the 1970s, 20% of the Amazon has been deforested, about twice the area of California. But deforestation isn’t an organized shrinking of the rainforest, paring it down from the edges in. Humans carve out farmlands, sometimes leaving a neat edge. 4/ wired.trib.al/p5DwpuH

Like on a real island, animals on an Amazon island can’t flee to other islands—they’re trapped. Deep in the Amazon, it’s dark and cooler and humid. At the edge of a rainforest island, though, humidity plummets and temperatures skyrocket. 5/ wired.trib.al/p5DwpuH

Left unchecked, a rapidly burning Amazon could kick the global thermostat up a notch. Amazonian soils help keep carbon locked up, while trees retain water vapor and create clouds that keep the entire South America region cool. 6/ wired.trib.al/jYqpY2i

Ecologists working in Brazil worry that this year's unprecedented fire season is a green tipping point of sorts, potentially damaging the rainforest’s ability to recover. 7/ wired.trib.al/jYqpY2i

The good (?) news: the total CO2 released by the burning is minuscule compared to the greenhouse emissions spewed out by industrial society’s factories, cars, and coal-burning power plants. But if this is indeed a tipping point, we’re in big trouble. 8/ wired.trib.al/jYqpY2i