Dataset Information

Post-drought decline of the Amazon carbon sink.

ABSTRACT: Amazon forests have experienced frequent and severe droughts in the past two decades. However, little is known about the large-scale legacy of droughts on carbon stocks and dynamics of forests. Using systematic sampling of forest structure measured by LiDAR waveforms from 2003 to 2008, here we show a significant loss of carbon over the entire Amazon basin at a rate of 0.3?±?0.2 (95% CI)?PgC?yr-1 after the 2005 mega-drought, which continued persistently over the next 3 years (2005-2008). The changes in forest structure, captured by average LiDAR forest height and converted to above ground biomass carbon density, show an average loss of 2.35?±?1.80?MgC?ha-1 a year after (2006) in the epicenter of the drought. With more frequent droughts expected in future, forests of Amazon may lose their role as a robust sink of carbon, leading to a significant positive climate feedback and exacerbating warming trends.

SUBMITTER: Yang Y

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6085357 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Post-drought decline of the Amazon carbon sink.

Yang Yan Y Saatchi Sassan S SS Xu Liang L Yu Yifan Y Choi Sungho S Phillips Nathan N Kennedy Robert R Keller Michael M Knyazikhin Yuri Y Myneni Ranga B RB

Nature communications 20180809 1

Amazon forests have experienced frequent and severe droughts in the past two decades. However, little is known about the large-scale legacy of droughts on carbon stocks and dynamics of forests. Using systematic sampling of forest structure measured by LiDAR waveforms from 2003 to 2008, here we show a significant loss of carbon over the entire Amazon basin at a rate of 0.3 ± 0.2 (95% CI) PgC yr<sup>-1</sup> after the 2005 mega-drought, which continued persistently over the next 3 years (2005-2008 ...[more]

PMID: 30093640

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Project description:BackgroundSeveral independent lines of evidence suggest that Amazon forests have provided a significant carbon sink service, and also that the Amazon carbon sink in intact, mature forests may now be threatened as a result of different processes. There has however been no work done to quantify non-land-use-change forest carbon fluxes on a national basis within Amazonia, or to place these national fluxes and their possible changes in the context of the major anthropogenic carbon fluxes in the region. Here we present a first attempt to interpret results from ground-based monitoring of mature forest carbon fluxes in a biogeographically, politically, and temporally differentiated way. Specifically, using results from a large long-term network of forest plots, we estimate the Amazon biomass carbon balance over the last three decades for the different regions and nine nations of Amazonia, and evaluate the magnitude and trajectory of these differentiated balances in relation to major national anthropogenic carbon emissions.ResultsThe sink of carbon into mature forests has been remarkably geographically ubiquitous across Amazonia, being substantial and persistent in each of the five biogeographic regions within Amazonia. Between 1980 and 2010, it has more than mitigated the fossil fuel emissions of every single national economy, except that of Venezuela. For most nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname) the sink has probably additionally mitigated all anthropogenic carbon emissions due to Amazon deforestation and other land use change. While the sink has weakened in some regions since 2000, our analysis suggests that Amazon nations which are able to conserve large areas of natural and semi-natural landscape still contribute globally-significant carbon sequestration.ConclusionsMature forests across all of Amazonia have contributed significantly to mitigating climate change for decades. Yet Amazon nations have not directly benefited from providing this global scale ecosystem service. We suggest that better monitoring and reporting of the carbon fluxes within mature forests, and understanding the drivers of changes in their balance, must become national, as well as international, priorities.

Dataset Information

Post-drought decline of the Amazon carbon sink.

Publications

Post-drought decline of the Amazon carbon sink.

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