Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system.

The possibility that the Amazon forest system could soon reach a tipping point, inducing large-scale collapse, has raised global concern1-3. For 65 million years, Amazonian forests remained relatively resilient to climatic variability. Now, the region is increasingly exposed to unprecedented stress from warming temperatures, extreme droughts, deforestation and fires, even in central and remote parts of the system1. Long existing feedbacks between the forest and environmental conditions are being replaced by novel feedbacks that modify ecosystem resilience, increasing the risk of critical transition. Here we analyse existing evidence for five major drivers of water stress on Amazonian forests, as well as potential critical thresholds of those drivers that, if crossed, could trigger local, regional or even biome-wide forest collapse. By combining spatial information on various disturbances, we estimate that by 2050, 10% to 47% of Amazonian forests will be exposed to compounding disturbances that may trigger unexpected ecosystem transitions and potentially exacerbate regional climate change. Using examples of disturbed forests across the Amazon, we identify the three most plausible ecosystem trajectories, involving different feedbacks and environmental conditions. We discuss how the inherent complexity of the Amazon adds uncertainty about future dynamics, but also reveals opportunities for action. Keeping the Amazon forest resilient in the Anthropocene will depend on a combination of local efforts to end deforestation and degradation and to expand restoration, with global efforts to stop greenhouse gas emissions.

Increased Amazon carbon emissions mainly from decline in law enforcement.

The Amazon forest carbon sink is declining, mainly as a result of land-use and climate change1-4. Here we investigate how changes in law enforcement of environmental protection policies may have affected the Amazonian carbon balance between 2010 and 2018 compared with 2019 and 2020, based on atmospheric CO2 vertical profiles5,6, deforestation7 and fire data8, as well as infraction notices related to illegal deforestation9. We estimate that Amazonia carbon emissions increased from a mean of 0.24 ± 0.08 PgC year-1 in 2010-2018 to 0.44 ± 0.10 PgC year-1 in 2019 and 0.52 ± 0.10 PgC year-1 in 2020 (± uncertainty). The observed increases in deforestation were 82% and 77% (94% accuracy) and burned area were 14% and 42% in 2019 and 2020 compared with the 2010-2018 mean, respectively. We find that the numbers of notifications of infractions against flora decreased by 30% and 54% and fines paid by 74% and 89% in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Carbon losses during 2019-2020 were comparable with those of the record warm El Niño (2015-2016) without an extreme drought event. Statistical tests show that the observed differences between the 2010-2018 mean and 2019-2020 are unlikely to have arisen by chance. The changes in the carbon budget of Amazonia during 2019-2020 were mainly because of western Amazonia becoming a carbon source. Our results indicate that a decline in law enforcement led to increases in deforestation, biomass burning and forest degradation, which increased carbon emissions and enhanced drying and warming of the Amazon forests.

Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change.

Amazonia hosts the Earth's largest tropical forests and has been shown to be an important carbon sink over recent decades1-3. This carbon sink seems to be in decline, however, as a result of factors such as deforestation and climate change1-3. Here we investigate Amazonia's carbon budget and the main drivers responsible for its change into a carbon source. We performed 590 aircraft vertical profiling measurements of lower-tropospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide at four sites in Amazonia from 2010 to 20184. We find that total carbon emissions are greater in eastern Amazonia than in the western part, mostly as a result of spatial differences in carbon-monoxide-derived fire emissions. Southeastern Amazonia, in particular, acts as a net carbon source (total carbon flux minus fire emissions) to the atmosphere. Over the past 40 years, eastern Amazonia has been subjected to more deforestation, warming and moisture stress than the western part, especially during the dry season, with the southeast experiencing the strongest trends5-9. We explore the effect of climate change and deforestation trends on carbon emissions at our study sites, and find that the intensification of the dry season and an increase in deforestation seem to promote ecosystem stress, increase in fire occurrence, and higher carbon emissions in the eastern Amazon. This is in line with recent studies that indicate an increase in tree mortality and a reduction in photosynthesis as a result of climatic changes across Amazonia1,10.

Tropical land carbon cycle responses to 2015/16 El Niño as recorded by atmospheric greenhouse gas and remote sensing data.

The outstanding tropical land climate characteristic over the past decades is rapid warming, with no significant large-scale precipitation trends. This warming is expected to continue but the effects on tropical vegetation are unknown. El Niño-related heat peaks may provide a test bed for a future hotter world. Here we analyse tropical land carbon cycle responses to the 2015/16 El Niño heat and drought anomalies using an atmospheric transport inversion. Based on the global atmospheric CO2 and fossil fuel emission records, we find no obvious signs of anomalously large carbon release compared with earlier El Niño events, suggesting resilience of tropical vegetation. We find roughly equal net carbon release anomalies from Amazonia and tropical Africa, approximately 0.5 PgC each, and smaller carbon release anomalies from tropical East Asia and southern Africa. Atmospheric CO anomalies reveal substantial fire carbon release from tropical East Asia peaking in October 2015 while fires contribute only a minor amount to the Amazonian carbon flux anomaly. Anomalously large Amazonian carbon flux release is consistent with downregulation of primary productivity during peak negative near-surface water anomaly (October 2015 to March 2016) as diagnosed by solar-induced fluorescence. Finally, we find an unexpected anomalous positive flux to the atmosphere from tropical Africa early in 2016, coincident with substantial CO release.This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The impact of the 2015/2016 El Niño on the terrestrial tropical carbon cycle: patterns, mechanisms and implications'.

Erratum: Large emissions from floodplain trees close the Amazon methane budget.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/nature24639.

A Global Synthesis Inversion Analysis of Recent Variability in CO2 Fluxes Using GOSAT and In Situ Observations.

The precise contribution of the two major sinks for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, terrestrial vegetation and the ocean, and their location and year-to-year variability are not well understood. Top-down estimates of the spatiotemporal variations in emissions and uptake of CO2 are expected to benefit from the increasing measurement density brought by recent in situ and remote CO2 observations. We uniquely apply a batch Bayesian synthesis inversion at relatively high resolution to in situ surface observations and bias-corrected GOSAT satellite column CO2 retrievals to deduce the global distributions of natural CO2 fluxes during 2009-2010. Our objectives include evaluating bottom-up prior flux estimates, assessing the value added by the satellite data, and examining the impacts of inversion technique and assumptions on posterior fluxes and uncertainties. The GOSAT inversion is generally better constrained than the in situ inversion, with smaller posterior regional flux uncertainties and correlations, because of greater spatial coverage, except over North America and high-latitude ocean. Complementarity of the in situ and GOSAT data enhances uncertainty reductions in a joint inversion; however, spatial and temporal gaps in sampling still limit the ability to accurately resolve fluxes down to the sub-continental scale. The GOSAT inversion produces a shift in the global CO2 sink from the tropics to the north and south relative to the prior, and an increased source in the tropics of ~2 Pg C y-1 relative to the in situ inversion, similar to what is seen in studies using other inversion approaches. This result may be driven by sampling and residual retrieval biases in the GOSAT data, as suggested by significant discrepancies between posterior CO2 distributions and surface in situ and HIPPO mission aircraft data. While the shift in the global sink appears to be a robust feature of the inversions, the partitioning of the sink between land and ocean in the inversions using either in situ or GOSAT data is found to be sensitive to prior uncertainties because of negative correlations in the flux errors. The GOSAT inversion indicates significantly less CO2 uptake in summer of 2010 than in 2009 across northern regions, consistent with the impact of observed severe heat waves and drought. However, observations from an in situ network in Siberia imply that the GOSAT inversion exaggerates the 2010-2009 difference in uptake in that region, while the prior CASA-GFED model of net ecosystem production and fire emissions reasonably estimates that quantity. The prior, in situ posterior, and GOSAT posterior all indicate greater uptake over North America in spring to early summer of 2010 than in 2009, consistent with wetter conditions. The GOSAT inversion does not show the expected impact on fluxes of a 2010 drought in the Amazon; evaluation of posterior mole fractions against local aircraft profiles suggests that time-varying GOSAT coverage can bias estimation of flux interannual variability in this region.

Large emissions from floodplain trees close the Amazon methane budget.

Wetlands are the largest global source of atmospheric methane (CH4), a potent greenhouse gas. However, methane emission inventories from the Amazon floodplain, the largest natural geographic source of CH4 in the tropics, consistently underestimate the atmospheric burden of CH4 determined via remote sensing and inversion modelling, pointing to a major gap in our understanding of the contribution of these ecosystems to CH4 emissions. Here we report CH4 fluxes from the stems of 2,357 individual Amazonian floodplain trees from 13 locations across the central Amazon basin. We find that escape of soil gas through wetland trees is the dominant source of regional CH4 emissions. Methane fluxes from Amazon tree stems were up to 200 times larger than emissions reported for temperate wet forests and tropical peat swamp forests, representing the largest non-ebullitive wetland fluxes observed. Emissions from trees had an average stable carbon isotope value (δ13C) of -66.2 ± 6.4 per mil, consistent with a soil biogenic origin. We estimate that floodplain trees emit 15.1 ± 1.8 to 21.2 ± 2.5 teragrams of CH4 a year, in addition to the 20.5 ± 5.3 teragrams a year emitted regionally from other sources. Furthermore, we provide a 'top-down' regional estimate of CH4 emissions of 42.7 ± 5.6 teragrams of CH4 a year for the Amazon basin, based on regular vertical lower-troposphere CH4 profiles covering the period 2010-2013. We find close agreement between our 'top-down' and combined 'bottom-up' estimates, indicating that large CH4 emissions from trees adapted to permanent or seasonal inundation can account for the emission source that is required to close the Amazon CH4 budget. Our findings demonstrate the importance of tree stem surfaces in mediating approximately half of all wetland CH4 emissions in the Amazon floodplain, a region that represents up to one-third of the global wetland CH4 source when trees are combined with other emission sources.

Modeling the radiative effects of biomass burning aerosols on carbon fluxes in the Amazon region.

Every year, a dense smoke haze covers a large portion of South America originating from fires in the Amazon Basin and central parts of Brazil during the dry biomass burning season between August and October. Over a large portion of South America, the average aerosol optical depth at 550 nm exceeds 1.0 during the fire season, while the background value during the rainy season is below 0.2. Biomass burning aerosol particles increase scattering and absorption of the incident solar radiation. The regional-scale aerosol layer reduces the amount of solar energy reaching the surface, cools the near-surface air, and increases the diffuse radiation fraction over a large disturbed area of the Amazon rainforest. These factors affect the energy and CO2 fluxes at the surface. In this work, we applied a fully integrated atmospheric model to assess the impact of biomass burning aerosols in CO2 fluxes in the Amazon region during 2010. We address the effects of the attenuation of global solar radiation and the enhancement of the diffuse solar radiation flux inside the vegetation canopy. Our results indicate that biomass burning aerosols led to increases of about 27% in the gross primary productivity of Amazonia and 10% in plant respiration as well as a decline in soil respiration of 3%. Consequently, in our model Amazonia became a net carbon sink; net ecosystem exchange during September 2010 dropped from +101 to -104 TgC when the aerosol effects are considered, mainly due to the aerosol diffuse radiation effect. For the forest biome, our results point to a dominance of the diffuse radiation effect on CO2 fluxes, reaching a balance of 50-50% between the diffuse and direct aerosol effects for high aerosol loads. For C3 grasses and savanna (cerrado), as expected, the contribution of the diffuse radiation effect is much lower, tending to zero with the increase in aerosol load. Taking all biomes together, our model shows the Amazon during the dry season, in the presence of high biomass burning aerosol loads, changing from being a source to being a sink of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Seasonality and interannual variability of CH4 fluxes from the eastern Amazon Basin inferred from atmospheric mole fraction profiles.

The Amazon Basin is an important region for global CH4 emissions. It hosts the largest area of humid tropical forests, and around 20% of this area is seasonally flooded. In a warming climate it is possible that CH4 emissions from the Amazon will increase both as a result of increased temperatures and precipitation. To examine if there are indications of first signs of such changes we present here a 13 year (2000-2013) record of regularly measured vertical CH4 mole fraction profiles above the eastern Brazilian Amazon, sensitive to fluxes from the region upwind of Santarém (SAN), between SAN and the Atlantic coast. Using a simple mass balance approach, we find substantial CH4 emissions with an annual average flux of 52.8 ± 6.8 mg CH4 m-2 d-1 over an area of approximately 1 × 106 km2. Fluxes are highest in two periods of the year: in the beginning of the wet season and during the dry season. Using a CO:CH4 emission factor estimated from the profile data, we estimated a contribution of biomass burning of around 15% to the total flux in the dry season, indicating that biogenic emissions dominate the CH4 flux. This 13 year record shows that CH4 emissions upwind of SAN varied over the years, with highest emissions in 2008 (around 25% higher than in 2007), mainly during the wet season, representing 19% of the observed global increase in this year.

Regional atmospheric CO2 inversion reveals seasonal and geographic differences in Amazon net biome exchange.

Understanding tropical rainforest carbon exchange and its response to heat and drought is critical for quantifying the effects of climate change on tropical ecosystems, including global climate-carbon feedbacks. Of particular importance for the global carbon budget is net biome exchange of CO2 with the atmosphere (NBE), which represents nonfire carbon fluxes into and out of biomass and soils. Subannual and sub-Basin Amazon NBE estimates have relied heavily on process-based biosphere models, despite lack of model agreement with plot-scale observations. We present a new analysis of airborne measurements that reveals monthly, regional-scale (~1-8 × 10(6)  km(2) ) NBE variations. We develop a regional atmospheric CO2 inversion that provides the first analysis of geographic and temporal variability in Amazon biosphere-atmosphere carbon exchange and that is minimally influenced by biosphere model-based first guesses of seasonal and annual mean fluxes. We find little evidence for a clear seasonal cycle in Amazon NBE but do find NBE sensitivity to aberrations from long-term mean climate. In particular, we observe increased NBE (more carbon emitted to the atmosphere) associated with heat and drought in 2010, and correlations between wet season NBE and precipitation (negative correlation) and temperature (positive correlation). In the eastern Amazon, pulses of increased NBE persisted through 2011, suggesting legacy effects of 2010 heat and drought. We also identify regional differences in postdrought NBE that appear related to long-term water availability. We examine satellite proxies and find evidence for higher gross primary productivity (GPP) during a pulse of increased carbon uptake in 2011, and lower GPP during a period of increased NBE in the 2010 dry season drought, but links between GPP and NBE changes are not conclusive. These results provide novel evidence of NBE sensitivity to short-term temperature and moisture extremes in the Amazon, where monthly and sub-Basin estimates have not been previously available.

Interpreting satellite column observations of formaldehyde over tropical South America.

Space-borne column measurements of formaldehyde (HCHO), a high-yield oxidation product of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), represent important constraints for quantifying net regional fluxes of VOCs. Here, we interpret observed distributions of HCHO columns from the Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME) over tropical South America during 1997-2001. We present the first comparison of year-long in situ isoprene concentrations and fire-free GOME HCHO columns over a tropical ecosystem. GOME HCHO columns and in situ isoprene concentrations are elevated in the wet and dry seasons, with the highest values in the dry season. Previous analysis of the in situ data highlighted the possible role of drought in determining the elevated concentrations during the dry season, inferring the potential of HCHO columns to provide regional-scale constraints for estimating the role of drought on isoprene emissions. The agreement between the observed annual cycles of GOME HCHO columns and Along-Track Scanning Radiometer firecount data over the Amazon basin (correlations typically greater than 0.75 for a particular year) illustrates the potential of HCHO column to provide quantitative information about biomass burning emissions.

Emission factors for gas-powered vehicles traveling through road tunnels in São Paulo, Brazil.

The objective of this study was to improve the vehicular emissions inventory for the light- and heavy-duty fleet in the metropolitan area of São Paulo (MASP), Brazil. To that end, we measured vehicle emissions in road tunnels located in the MASP. On March 22-26, 2004 and May 04-07, 2004, respectively, CO, CO2, NOx, SO2, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emissions were measured in two tunnels: the Janio Quadros, which carries light-dutyvehicles; and the Maria Maluf, which carries light-duty vehicles and heavy-duty diesel trucks. Pollutant concentrations were measured inside the tunnels, and background pollutant concentrations were measured outside of the tunnels. The mean CO and NOx emission factors (in g km(-1)) were, respectively, 14.6 +/- 2.3 and 1.6 +/- 0.3 for light-duty vehicles, compared with 20.6 +/- 4.7 and 22.3 +/- 9.8 for heavy-duty vehicles. The total VOCs emission factor for the Maria Maluf tunnel was 1.4 +/- 1.3 g km(-1). The main VOCs classes identified were aromatic, alkane, and aldehyde compounds. For the heavy-duty fleet, NOx emission factors were approximately 14 times higher than those found for the light-duty fleet. This was attributed to the high levels of NOx emissions from diesel vehicles.

Química atmosférica na Amazônia: a floresta e as emissões de queimadas controlando a composição da atmosfera amazônica / Atmospheric chemistry in Amazonia: the forest and the biomass burning emissions controlling the composition of the Amazonian atmosphere

Entender os processos naturais que regulam a composição da atmosfera é crítico para que se possa desenvolver uma estratégia de desenvolvimento sustentável na região. As grandes emissões de gases e partículas durante a estação seca provenientes das queimadas alteram profundamente a composição da atmosfera amazônica na maior parte de sua área. As concentrações de partículas de aerossóis e gases traço aumentam por fatores de 2 a 8 em grandes áreas, afetando os mecanismos naturais de uma série de processos atmosféricos na região amazônica. Os mecanismos de formação de nuvens, por exemplo, são profundamente alterados quando a concentração de núcleos de condensação de nuvens (NCN) passa de 200 a 300 NCN/cm³ na estação chuvosa para 5.000-10.000 NCN/centímetro cúbico na estação seca. As gotas de nuvens sofrem uma redução de tamanho de 18 a 25 micrômetros para 5 a 10 micrômetros, diminuindo a eficiência do processo de precipitação e suprimindo a formação de nuvens. A concentração de ozônio, um gás importante para a saúde da floresta amazônica passa de cerca de 12 partes por bilhão em volume (ppb) (concentração típica ao meio do dia na estação chuvosa) para valores em regiões fortemente impactadas por queimadas de até 100 ppb, nível que pode ser fitotóxico para a vegetação. O balanço de radiação é fortemente afetado, com uma perda líquida de até 70 por cento da radiação fotossinteticamente ativa na superfície.