 A 23 July 2006 article in the UK newspaper "The Independent" reported the Woods Hole Research Center results, showing that the forest in its present form could survive only three years of drought.Scientists at the Brazilian National Institute of Amazonian Research argued in the article that this drought response, coupled with the effects of deforestation on regional climate, are pushing the rainforest towards a "tipping point" where it would irreversibly start to die.It concluded that the forest is on the brink of being turned into savanna or desert, with catastrophic consequences for the world's climate.