By Magali Nehemy \u00a0Assistant Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Science \u00a0University of British Columbia The Amazon is the world\u2019s largest tropical forest, home to unmatched biodiversity and one of the planet\u2019s longest rivers. Besides the Amazon River, the Amazon rainforest also features \u201cflying rivers:\u201d invisible streams of vapour that travel through the atmosphere, fuelling rainfall both within the forest and far beyond its boundaries. The forests play a central role in this system. Much of the moisture that rises into the atmosphere comes from transpiration. Trees pull water from the soil through their roots, transport it to the leaves and release it as vapour. That vapour becomes rainfall \u2014 sometimes locally, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away. In the dry season when rain is scarce, up to 70 per cent… <\/p>\n
By Magali Nehemy \u00a0Assistant Professor, Department of Earth & Environmental Science \u00a0University of British Columbia The Amazon is the world\u2019s largest tropical forest, home to unmatched biodiversity and one of the planet\u2019s longest rivers. Besides the Amazon River, the Amazon rainforest also features \u201cflying rivers:\u201d invisible streams of vapour that travel through the atmosphere, fuelling rainfall both within the forest and far beyond its boundaries. The forests play a central role in this system. Much of the moisture that rises into the atmosphere comes from transpiration. Trees pull water from the soil through their roots, transport it to the leaves and release it as vapour. That vapour becomes rainfall \u2014 sometimes locally, sometimes hundreds of kilometres away. In the dry season when rain is scarce, up to 70 per cent... <\/p>\n