Citation
Phillips, Oliver L. and Aragao, Luiz and Lewis, Simon L. and Fisher, Joshua B. and Lloyd, J. and Lopez Gonzalez, G. and Malhi, Y. and Monteagudo, A. and Peacock, J. and Quesada, C.A. and Van der Heijden, Geertje and Almeida, S. and Amaral, Ieda and Arroyo, L. and Aymard, Gerardo and Baker, T.R. de and Banki, Olaf and Blanc, Lilian and Bolan, Damien and Brando, Paulo and Chave, Jerome and Alves de Oliveira, Atila Cristina and Dávila Cardozo, Nallaret and Czimczik, Claudia I. and Feldpausch, Ted R. and Aparecida Freita, Maria and Gloor, Emanuel and Higuchi, Niro and Jimenez Rojas, Eliana Maria and Lloyd, G. and Meir, Patrick and Mendoza, Casimiro and Morel, Alexandra and Neill, D.A. and Nepstad, David and Patiño, S. and Peñuela, M.C. and Prieto, A. and Ramírez, Fredy and Schwarz, M. and Silva, Javier and Silveira, Marcos and Sota Thomas, Anne and Ter Steege, Hans and Stropp, Juliana and Vasquez, R. and Zelazowsk, Przemyslaw and Alvarez Davila, Esteban and Adelman, S. and Andrade, Ana and Chao, K.J. and Erwin, T. and Di Fiore, A. and Honorio, E. and Keeling, Helen and Killen, T. and Laurance, William E. and Peña Cruz, A. and Pitman, N. and Nuñez Vargas, P. and Ramirez Angulo, H. and Rudas, A. and Salamao, R. and Silva, N. and Terborgh, J. and Torres Lezama, Armando
(2009).
Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest.
"Science", v. 323
(n. 5919);
pp. 1344-1347.
ISSN 0036-8075.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1164033.
Abstract
Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 × 1015 to 1.6 × 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change
