Climatologists study the meteorology of climate. These scientists are concerned that the disappearance of tropical forests will contribute to changed climate patterns over the entire earth, not just in the deforested areas. From their space ship, astronauts could see the scar on the earth caused by the burning of the tropical forest. With each fire, more carbon dioxide enters the earths' atmosphere.
Increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will contribute to preventing the normal escape of earth's surface heat into space, creating a "greenhouse effect." The predicted result is a rise in average temperatures with increased melting of glacial and polar ice.
Scientists are concerned that the "greenhouse-effect" gases are in the atmosphere. The consequences of this trend may range from agricultural disaster because of droughts, coastal destruction due to rising sea levels, increasingly severe storms, and even the spread, in temperate zones, of tropical diseases.
