The Amazon Tall Tower Observatory is a large-scale joint German-Brazilian project that has been funded by both countries since 2010. The research station in the Amazon rainforest is a unique scientific platform for long-term research into the changing role of the Amazon forests in the Earth system. More than 200 scientists from all over the world are now conducting research to understand how intact Amazon forests affect regional and global climate, greenhouse gas balance and air quality, and how these will change as a result of global change.
With the help of the research station, scientists study the complex interactions between the world's largest tropical forest and the atmosphere. Since the start of continuous data collection in 2011, ATTO fills a gap in global observation networks with long-term climatic, biogeochemical, and atmospheric measurements. Targeted studies of specific processes complement the long-term measurements and seek to explain underlying causes of year-to-year variations in forest-atmosphere exchanges of energy, water and greenhouse gases.
A major advantage of ATTO is that it brings multiple disciplines together in the same place. Some scientists study how environment and biology control the exchange of energy, water, particles, and gases with the atmosphere. Others study how atmospheric motions and chemical determine the fates of forest emissions. Bringing these perspectives together allows improved understanding of feedbacks and improve the accuracy of predictions of how climatic and ecological processes respond to the changing Earth system. ATTO+ thus makes an important contribution to the scientific basis of climate policy decisions, also in Germany.
The Max Planck Society is continuing its funding of the project over the coming years. In addition, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research is funding a further research phase with ATTO+ as part of the "Research for Sustainability" (FONA) strategy with around 5 million euros. This will allow the research to be deepened and to be linked with other research projects in the Amazon for optimal use of the collected data. This funding is a great success for the participating scientists in Germany.
New research funded by ATTO+ allows project members to answer new pressing scientific questions. For example, ongoing observations at ATTO indicate strong connections between drought, leaf phenology and the overall carbon balance of the forest. Additional instrumentation and remote sensing financed through ATTO+ will provide new data to explain the causes of observed year-to-year variations in forest carbon balance. Measurements at ATTO also show that numerous volatile compounds contribute to chemical reactions in the atmosphere. New research will investigate the ecological origin of these compounds and their influence on aerosol formation and thus on the formation of clouds and precipitation. And there will also be a focus on how smoke from deforestation fires in the Amazon, whose number and severity is increasing due to droughts, affects cloud formation. Both can have a lasting impact on the continent's hydrological cycle. Other new research relates wind damage to trees with turbulence regimes above the forest and links wind disturbance to biodiversity patterns and long-term carbon storage.
The publicly available data and results of the ATTO research will be made available not only to the scientific community, but also to the interested public. A photo exhibition, educational materials for schools, and new collaborative projects with communities near the research station will complement existing online formats and social media coverage of the project.
The ATTO+ research phase is coordinated in Germany by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. Other core partners are the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). On the Brazilian side, coordination is carried out by the Institute for Amazon Research (INPA) in Manaus, with the University of the State of Amazonas (UEA) as another core partner. In addition, about two dozen other research institutions are significantly involved in ATTO, including the University of Sao Paulo and the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil (INPE).
Further Reading
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (20.08.21): Successful climate research in the Amazon region is continued and expanded with ATTO+
