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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.

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.

The experiment’s results could help us better understand what level of emissions is possible before further disastrous consequences kick in.