Cut Down The Amazon Forest And You Make Sao Paulo Run Out Of Water

The Jaguari Reservoir near Sao Paulo looked
pretty full in this satellite image from 2013
From Earth Observatory.  

Sao Paulo, Brazil, South America's largest and richest city, is about to go broke in one respect: Unless they get a bunch of rain soon, they're going to totally run out of water.

Brazil is having a big drought. Some of it is probably due to natural cycles in the weather and climate. Some of it probably has to do with global warming altering weather patterns.

But according to Reuters, another culprit causing the drought is probably the idiots cutting down all the trees in the vast Amazon jungle.

Trees emit oxygen, which is great since we need it to breath. But they also emit water vapor. Lots of it.

The same reservoir is pretty much dried out
in this recent satellite image from
Earth Observatory.  

That's one reason why it often feels damp or humid in a forest. Since there are zillions of trees in the Amazon, or at least there was, a lot of water vapor came from that forest.

"Humidity that comes from the Amazon in the form of vapor clouds - what we call 'flying rivers' - has dropped dramatically, contributing to this devasting situation we are living today,' said Antonio Nobre, a leading climate scientist at INPE, Brazil's National Space Research Institute.

What Nobre is saying is a lot that moisture the Amazon trees were belching out blew toward Sao Paulo.

The humidity often helps form showers, rain and storms that kept the Sao Paulo metro area and it's 20 million people nice and hydrated.

Deforestation is increasing in the Amazon again, jumping 29 percent in the 12 months ending in July, 2013, the last available year of record. It was the first increase in deforestation since 2008.

They're cutting down so many trees in the Amazon to make room for cattle ranches, industry, dams and development. Regulation isn't always so great in the region,  as you can tell, so greed often trumps conservation and sensible planning.

The drought is really screwing up Brazil. In addition to the looming water crisis in Sao Paulo, exports of key crops from Brazil like coffee, oranges, soybeans and sugarcane are down.

For now, all they can do in Brazil is pray for more rain. And pressure agribusiness and industry to stop cutting down the Amazon trees.

"What's happening now highlights the importance of preserving and replenishing the Amazon if we want to prevent Sao Paulo from becoming a desert," Nobre told Reuters.