It is a very typical thought to imagine soccer, festival and coffee etc. about Brazil. However, if you visit Brazil, you can see huge sugarcane plantations. However, increasing sugarcane production in Brazil has negative effects on local climate.

In comparison to soybeans, sugarcane lowers the air temperature about 1 degree in the peak of the growing period. The researcher said that the Brazilian Cerrado has been converted to agriculture from natural vegetation in recent decades.

During the peak growing season for sugar-cane, the temperature in the area of sugar-cane will be cooler. And after harvest, local climate warms around December and January.

Existing agricultural areas have been replaced to sugarcane due to a significant crop for biofuel from sugarcane. The expert said that there is a potential exists for a worldwide effect from sugarcane growing expansion in Cerrado.

The satellite images tell that sugarcane fall the local air temperature than other annual crops, which has calculated the temperature and amount of water using maps and data.

This happening might not have a significant effect on global climate as a result. But depending on how to use agriculture of sugarcane such as cutting down Amazon forest for new pasture, carbon emission could be increased.

Source : Stanford News