Scientists warn worsening wildfires, deforestation and warmer temperatures could permanently destroy the water cycle sustaining large portions of the Amazon rainforest in the coming decades. In a study published this week by the journal Nature, researchers say that between 10% to nearly half of the Amazon’s ecosystem is at risk of transitioning from rainforest to savannah by the year 2050 unless deforestation is dramatically reduced and urgent action is taken to curb the worst impacts of global warming. This is one of the study’s lead authors, Bernardo Flores, a researcher at the University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

Bernardo Flores: “Once we cross this tipping point, maybe we cannot do anything anymore, and then it’s useless to stop deforestation, to try to stop. We may not even be able to, because the forest will die by itself. So, I mean, it’s time to — red alert.”