Testing the Amazon's ability to soak up increasing carbon emissions

Environment

Testing the Amazon's ability to soak up increasing carbon emissions

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, an unusual experiment is deliberately pumping out greenhouse gas to measure how flora and fauna react to the levels we expect to reach in the future. Photographer Lalo de Almeida captures the vast machinery of the AmazonFACE project

By Matthew Sparkes

5 December 2025

Aerial view of the round structures of the AmazonFACE experiment built in a National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) research area, located 80 km north of Manaus. AmazonFACE is one of the largest scientific experiments ever conducted in the Amazon. It simulates, in a tropical forest area, the impact of the increase in atmospheric CO2 predicted for the coming decades. Using FACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment) technology, the project seeks to understand how climate change will affect the forest, its biodiversity, and the beneficial functions it currently carries out. — A view of the round structures of the AmazonFACE experiment
Lalo de Almeida/Folhapress/Panos

Deep in the Amazon rainforest, an unusual experiment is deliberately pumping out carbon dioxide to measure how flora and fauna react to the levels we expect to reach in the future.

Photographer Lalo de Almeida captured these images of the Amazon Free-Air CO₂ Enrichment (AmazonFACE) experiment, a project 80 kilometres north of the Brazilian city of Manaus that is run by the country’s National Institute of Amazonian Research. He likened it to “a hidden spying facility out of a Bond movie”.

The project covers a wide area with six circles of 35-metre-tall metal towers (main image). Each circle is 30 metres in diameter and composed of 16 towers laden with sensors. Half of these rings emit CO₂ and the others act as controls.

New Ů��С��Ƶ. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine. — The towers of the AmazonFACE experiment
Lalo de Almeida/Folhapress/Panos

Each tower that emits CO₂ increases the local concentration of the gas by 50 per cent to simulate the expected increase in emissions in the coming decades. The below image shows scientists collecting data on plants in one of the rings.