First Advisor

Kleier, Catherine

Reader

Bemski, Peter

College

Regis College

Degree Name

BA

School

Regis College Senior Honors Program

Document Type

Thesis - Open Access

Number of Pages

77 pages

Abstract

The importance of the rainforest spans beyond the reach of species richness. As global warming carries on, the tropical rainforest supplies twenty per cent of the world's oxygen (Taylor, 1996). The tropical rainforest, coined the "Earth's Lungs" by some environmentalists (Greenpeace International of Brazil, 2006), carries special pertinence to global climatic patterns. Fearnside (2005) reported that the Amazon Basin, once thought to recycle fifty per cent of its water, actually recycles twenty to thirty per cent; while this may seem to somehow decrease the value of water recycling throughout the basin, it actually implies that some vapor escapes into other regions. He noted that some of the water vapor enters the Pacific (travelling to Columbia), while other vapor reaches through Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Argentina. Some of the vapor even travels across the Atlantic, and into southern Africa. The presence of this water vapor then affects the hydrological system on a global, rather than regional, scale.

Date of Award

Spring 2009

Location (Creation)

Colorado (state); Denver (county); Denver (inhabited place)

Rights Statement

All content in this Collection is owned by and subject to the exclusive control of Regis University and the authors of the materials. It is available only for research purposes and may not be used in violation of copyright laws or for unlawful purposes. The materials may not be downloaded in whole or in part without permission of the copyright holder or as otherwise authorized in the “fair use” standards of the U.S. copyright laws and regulations.

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