The changing Amazon forest.
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TLDR
Evidence for concerted changes in the structure, dynamics and composition of old-growth Amazonian forests in the late twentieth century is examined and any switch from carbon sink to source would have profound implications for global climate, biodiversity and human welfare.Abstract:
than 10 cm diameter increased by 0.62G0.23 t C ha K1 yr K1 averaged across the basin. This implies a carbon sink in Neotropical old-growth forest of at least 0.49G0.18 Pg C yr K1 . If other biomass and necromass components are also increased proportionally, then the old-growth forest sink here has been 0.79G0.29 Pg C yr K1 , even before allowing for any gains in soil carbon stocks. This is approximately equal to the carbon emissions to the atmosphere by Amazon deforestation. There is also evidence for recent changes in Amazon biodiversity. In the future, the growth response of remaining old-growth mature Amazon forests will saturate, and these ecosystems may switch from sink to source driven by higher respiration (temperature), higher mortality (as outputs equilibrate to the growth inputs and periodic drought) or compositional change (disturbances). Any switch from carbon sink to source would have profound implications for global climate, biodiversity and human welfare, while the documented acceleration of tree growth and mortality may already be affecting the interactions among millions of species.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
A global overview of drought and heat-induced tree mortality reveals emerging climate change risks for forests
Craig D. Allen,Alison K. Macalady,Haroun Chenchouni,Dominique Bachelet,Nate G. McDowell,Michel Vennetier,Thomas Kitzberger,Andreas Rigling,David D. Breshears,Edward H. Hogg,Patrick Gonzalez,Rod Fensham,Zhen Zhang,Jorge Castro,N.A. Demidova,Jong Hwan Lim,Gillian Allard,Steven W. Running,Akkin Semerci,Neil S. Cobb +19 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present the first global assessment of recent tree mortality attributed to drought and heat stress and identify key information gaps and scientific uncertainties that currently hinder our ability to predict tree mortality in response to climate change and emphasizes the need for a globally coordinated observation system.
Supporting Online Material for A Large and Persistent Carbon Sink in the World's Forests
Yude Pan,Richard A. Birdsey,Jingyun Fang,Richard A. Houghton,Pekka E. Kauppi,Werner A. Kurz,Oliver L. Phillips,Anatoly Shvidenko,Simon L. Lewis,Philippe Ciais,Robert B. Jackson,Stephen W. Pacala,A. David McGuire,Shilong Piao,Aapo Rautiainen,Stephen Sitch,Daniel J. Hayes +16 more
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On underestimation of global vulnerability to tree mortality and forest die‐off from hotter drought in the Anthropocene
TL;DR: In this article, the authors identify ten contrasting perspectives that shape the vulnerability debate but have not been discussed collectively and present a set of global vulnerability drivers that are known with high confidence: (1) droughts eventually occur everywhere; (2) warming produces hotter Droughts; (3) atmospheric moisture demand increases nonlinearly with temperature during drought; (4) mortality can occur faster in hotter Drought, consistent with fundamental physiology; (5) shorter Drought can become lethal under warming, increasing the frequency of lethal Drought; and (6) mortality happens rapidly
Journal ArticleDOI
Increasing carbon storage in intact African tropical forests
Simon L. Lewis,Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez,Bonaventure Sonké,Kofi Affum-Baffoe,Timothy R. Baker,Lucas Ojo,Oliver L. Phillips,Jan Reitsma,Lee J. T. White,James A. Comiskey,James A. Comiskey,Marie-Noël Djuikouo K,Corneille E. N. Ewango,Ted R. Feldpausch,A. C. Hamilton,Manuel Gloor,Terese B. Hart,Annette Hladik,Jon Lloyd,Jon C. Lovett,Jean-Remy Makana,Yadvinder Malhi,Frank M. Mbago,Henry J. Ndangalasi,Julie Peacock,Kelvin S.-H. Peh,Douglas Sheil,Terry Sunderland,Terry Sunderland,Michael D. Swaine,James Taplin,David Taylor,Sean C. Thomas,Raymond Votere,Hannsjörg Wöll +34 more
TL;DR: Taxon-specific analyses of African inventory and other data suggest that widespread changes in resource availability, such as increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, may be the cause of the increase in carbon stocks, as some theory and models predict.
Journal ArticleDOI
Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change
Richard A. Houghton,Joanna Isobel House,Julia Pongratz,Julia Pongratz,G. R. van der Werf,Ruth DeFries,Matthew C. Hansen,C. Le Quéré,Navin Ramankutty +8 more
TL;DR: For the period 1990-2009, the mean global emissions from land use and land cover change (LULCC) are 1.14 ± 0.18 Pg C yr−1 as discussed by the authors.
References
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