Maritime Continent (MC)

According to a new study, deforestation in the Maritime Continent (MC) can strengthen subtropical El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) dynamics, causing more Central Pacific and multi-year ENSOs.

ENSO is an important climate phenomenon on Earth due to its ability to change the global atmospheric circulation, which in turn influences temperature and precipitation across the globe.

Geography – A region around Southeast Asia between the Indian and Pacific oceans (Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea and 1000’s of islands and many seas).
Climate – It is the warmest large span of ocean in the world, with an average temperature of about 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
A lot of water evaporates and carried by tropical breezes, it drifts over the islands.
Importance - It drives air currents circling around the planet, and also helps drive El Niño and La Niña thereby influencing the climate and weather in much of the world.

Impact of deforestation – It reduces evapotranspiration and surface albedo which impacts land-atmosphere-ocean interactions such as the land-sea breeze.
It might lead to 13.8% increase in La Nina events and 44.7% increases in multi-year El Nino events.

According to State of the World’s Forests 2022 by FAO (UN), forests absorbed more carbon than they emitted in 2011–2020 due to conservation efforts and it contain 662 billion tonnes of carbon which is more than half the global carbon stock in soils and vegetation.

FAO also estimated that around 420 million hectares (ha) of forest were lost between 1990 and 2020 and it was at 10 million ha per year in 2015–2020.

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