Researchers reveal wrong map of "Humboldt"

Mohammad ALHADDAD

An international team of researchers led by the University of Toulouse has conducted a study to re-survey the mountainous areas identified by German geographer Alexander von Humboldt in his study more than 200 years ago on the range of plant ranges according to climate change at the heights of the mountain slopes of the Andes in South America.

Humboldt was not right
The surprise was that researchers found errors in Humboldt's charts and maps on climate change and the degree of plant variability they recorded in the region, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on May 28.

The study is of great importance because of its opposition to one of the main hypotheses of one of the important researchers is the geographical Alexander von Humboldt, one of the most important scientists in history.

Scientists have long relied on Humboldt's hypothesis in that map in various disciplines related to environmental studies and geology in determining vegetation cover and assessing the impacts of climate change.

In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt published an illustration showing a cross section of the mountain slopes of the Andes, along with the names of the plants. The aim of the figure was to show how the environment changed as altitudes increased.

In the present study, the researchers revisited the places where Humboldt traveled with his botanist, Jacques Bounblant, to observe the vegetation they found and compare it to the scheme established by Humboldt.

Correct what Humboldt described
The researchers reported that they found several errors in the drawing, most of which are variations in the height of some plants.

But there was also one glaring error, an error in describing vegetation growing at different altitudes on Chimborazo, a volcanic mountain in Ecuador.

The research team found that Humboldt and his colleague were in fact not connected to Chimborazo, but were on a different mountain, the mountain created by the Antisana volcano.

Researchers on this mountain recently found details described by Humboldt and his colleague, such as the cave where they lived in 1802.

In the present study, the researchers collected the same plant species as Humboldt and his colleague, on the same heights as Humboldt.

The authors of the current study believe their findings are critical because they correct what researchers used to use the wrong elevation data when presenting studies on differences due to climate change.

The new survey showed, for example, that the highest plants in the mountain were growing at a height of 215 to 266 meters higher than Humboldt and Bonbland, while other researchers were using incorrect elevation data and claimed that the plants were growing at a height of up to 500 meters During the nineteenth century.