Drought sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest.
Science
; 323(5919): 1344-7, 2009 Mar 06.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19265020
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 x 10(15) to 1.6 x 10(15) grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.
Texto completo:
1
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Árvores
/
Ecossistema
/
Biomassa
/
Secas
Tipo de estudo:
Diagnostic_studies
País/Região como assunto:
America do sul
/
Brasil
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Science
Ano de publicação:
2009
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Reino Unido