The aim of BUNIAACIC is to establish a collaborative network between Brazilian and UK atmospheric researchers, and from this build a framework for future collaborative research in the Amazon. A full list of the project's objectives may be found here. For more information, contact details of the BUNIAACIC UK office may be found here.
The Amazon Basin consists of the world's largest rainforest, covering an area of 5.5 million square kilometres. Biogenic gases and aerosols emitted from the rainforest can have a significant impact on global tropospheric chemistry as a result of long-range transport following the strong convective processes that occur in that region. On a regional scale, in the wet season, the hydrological cycle is strongly influenced by these biogenic aerosol emissions, which provide most of the cloud condensation nuclei and thereby influence the radiation balance and cloud lifetime. In the dry season, widespread biomass burning can result in a substantially increased aerosol optical depth over large areas of Amazonia, and contributes a significant proportion to Brazil's greenhouse gas emissions. Improving our knowledge of these processes is necessary to understand the influence the Amazon rainforest has on regional and global climate and atmospheric composition, and how changing land use and climate in Amazonia will impact on this. BUNIAACIC aims to define and nurture a framework within which UK contributions to studies in these areas may be coordinated.