The CloudRoots project asks a simple but powerful question: How does the Amazon rainforest interact with its own clouds? CloudRoots explores this two-way dialogue between forest and atmosphere across scales ranging from tiny leaf pores to clouds several kilometers above the Amazon. The team published the results from their research in several papers.
Débora Pinheiro-Oliveira and her colleagues investigated how forest diversity and environmental conditions shape the fluxes of BVOCs and methane in the soil–litter layer. They found that forest diversity and environmental conditions create a mosaic of gas exchange processes across the region.
A hidden mechanism continuously forms new aerosol particles from gaseous precursors in the Amazon rainforest, challenging previous assumptions about the sources of cloud condensation nuclei and their role in the hydrological cycle and climate.
A new study shows that drought stress reorganizes soil carbon sources in Amazon white-sand forest soils, increasing ecosystem stress and affecting carbon and nutrient cycles.
Thunderstorms regularly reshape weather over the Amazon. Using high-frequency data from the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory, researchers cataloged 410 storms (Aug 2021–Dec 2023) and found they strike about every other day, mostly from midafternoon to evening and April–September. The forest canopy mutes most gusts below it, while above-canopy airflow matches textbook storm patterns—insights that improve models of energy, aerosol, and greenhouse gas exchanges for better weather and climate predictions.
