Ecobreves – BRAZIL: Beyond the Tropical Image

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

PORTO ALEGRE, Jun 9 2007 (IPS) - “To understand the climate changes in Brazil it is essential to abandon the tropical country myth and look also at the other regions,” warns paleoclimatologist Jefferson Cárdia Simões, of the Brazilian Antarctic Program. Global warming will not only jeopardize the Amazon, but also the southern region of Brazil, considered an area of climate transition, Cárdia Simões told Tierramérica.

The government of Rio Grande do Sul state, in the south, announced the creation of a State Forum on Climate Changes, with the participation of scientists from different areas, in order to help formulate policies for mitigation and adaptation to new climate scenarios.

There is a lack of data to understand climate behavior in the southern region over the last 300 years, and more research is needed on lake sediments and tree rings, as has been done in Antarctica, says Cárdia Simões.