Record-breaking warming and extreme drought in the Amazon rainforest during the course of El Niño 2015–2016

Jiménez-Muñoz, Juan C.; Mattar, Cristián; Barichivich, Jonathan; Santamaría-Artigas, Andrés; Takahashi, K.; Malhi, Yadvinder; Sobrino, José A.; Schrier, Gerard van der

doi:10.1038/srep33130

Cited by 515 publications

(463 citation statements)

References 34 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

424

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…At the same time, a strong El Niño event developed starting in the latter half of 2015. Elevated fire emissions in tropical Asia were reported (Huijnen et al, 2016;Yin et al, 2016) and a severe drought was detected over eastern Amazonia (Jiménez-Muñoz et al, 2016). As a result, in 2015 the global monthly atmospheric CO 2 concentration surpassed 400 µmol mol −1 (ppm) for the first time, with an unprecedented large annual growth rate of 2.96 ± 0.09 ppm yr −1 (https://www.esrl.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation greenness and land carbon-flux anomalies associated with climate variations: a focus on the year 2015

Ciais

Bastos

et al. 2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Understanding the variations in global land carbon uptake, and their driving mechanisms, is essential if we are to predict future carbon-cycle feedbacks on global environmental changes. Satellite observations of vegetation greenness have shown consistent greening across the globe over the past three decades. Such greening has driven the increasing land carbon sink, especially over the growing season in northern latitudes. On the other hand, interannual variations in land carbon uptake are strongly influenced by El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate variations. Marked reductions in land uptake and strong positive anomalies in the atmospheric CO 2 growth rates occur during El Niño events. Here we use the year 2015 as a natural experiment to examine the possible response of land ecosystems to a combination of vegetation greening and an El Niño event. The year 2015 was the greenest year since 2000 according to satellite observations, but a record atmospheric CO 2 growth rate also occurred due to a weaker than usual land carbon sink. Two atmospheric inversions indicate that the year 2015 had a higher than usual northern land carbon uptake in boreal spring and summer, consistent with the positive greening anomaly and strong warming. This strong uptake was, however, followed by a larger source of CO 2 in the autumn. For the year 2015, enhanced autumn carbon release clearly offset the extra uptake associated with greening during the summer. This finding leads us to speculate that a long-term greening trend may foster more uptakes during the growing season, but no large increase in annual carbon sequestration. For the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, a strong transition towards a large carbon source for the last 3 months of 2015 is discovered, concomitant with El Niño development. This transition of terrestrial tropical CO 2 fluxes between two consecutive seasons is the largest ever found in the inversion records. The strong transition to a carbon source in the tropics with the peak of El Niño is consistent with historical observations, but the detailed mechanisms underlying such an extreme transition remain to be elucidated.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vegetation greenness and land carbon-flux anomalies associated with climate variations: a focus on the year 2015

Ciais

Bastos

et al. 2017

Atmos. Chem. Phys.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We should note that the Atlantic SST variability also plays a key role in modulating the South American climate such as over the Amazon region on several timescales (Espinoza et al, 2011;Marengo and Espinoza, 2016;Jiménez-Muñoz et al, 2016). For example, Marengo and Espinoza (2016) pointed out that drought or floods in the Amazon region tend to be explained as a result of the combined effect of the anomalous circulation associated with changes in SST of the tropical Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of different ENSO flavors and tropical Pacific convection variability (ITCZ, SPCZ) on austral summer rainfall in South America, with a focus on Peru

Sulca

Takahashi

Espinoza

et al. 2017

Intl Journal of Climatology

Self Cite

136

128

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

El Niño in the eastern and central Pacific has different impacts on the rainfall of South America, and the atmospheric pathways through the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ) and Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) are poorly understood. To address this, we performed linear regression analysis of E (eastern Pacific) and C (central Pacific) indices of sea surface temperature (SST), as well as precipitation indices for the SPCZ and ITCZ, with gridded precipitation and reanalysis data sets during the austral summer (December-February) for the 1980-2016 period. Positive C induces dry anomalies along the tropical Andes and northern South America (NSA), while wet anomalies prevail over southeastern South America (SESA). Moreover, it produces wet conditions in the northwestern Peruvian Amazon. In contrast, positive E enhances wet conditions along the coasts of Ecuador and northern Peru associated with the southward displacement of the eastern Pacific ITCZ and induces dry conditions in Altiplano, Amazon basin, and northeastern Brazil (NEB). Both El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices are associated with weakened upper-level easterly flow over Peru, but it is more restricted to the central and southern Peruvian Andes with positive E. Both SPCZ indices, the zonal position of the SPCZ and its latitudinal displacement, suppress rainfall along western Peruvian Andes when are positive, but the latter also inhibits rainfall over the Bolivian Altiplano. They are also linked to upper-level westerly wind anomalies overall of Peru, but these anomalies do not extend as far south in the first. The southward displacement of the eastern Pacific ITCZ also induces wet anomalies in SESA while dry anomalies prevail over NEB, the western Amazon basin, and Bolivia. Oppositely, the southward displacement of the central Pacific ITCZ induces dry anomalies in NEB and along the northern coast of Peru; while wet anomalies occur mainly in eastern Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia through an enhancement of the low level jet.

show abstract

“…Furthermore, the likelihood of disastrous wildfires this century is increased by predicted climate and vegetation changes linked to a higher frequency of extreme droughts, (Malhi et al, 2009, Chen et al 2011, Coe et al, 2013, Davidson et al, 2012. For example, in 1998 fires in the Brazilian Amazonian state of Roraima affected over 5 million hectares of forest (Cochrane, 2009, p.17), while 2015 was the hottest year in the amazon over the last century (Jiménez-Muñoz et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Policy instruments to control Amazon fires: A simulation approach

Morello¹,

Parry

Markusson

et al. 2017

Ecological Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Agricultural fires are a double-edged sword that allow for cost-efficient land management in the tropics but also cause accidental fires and emissions of carbon and pollutants. To control fires in Amazon, it is currently unclear whether policy-makers should prioritize commandand-control or incentive-based instruments such as REDD+. Aiming to generate knowledge about the relative merits of the two policy approaches, this paper presents a spatially-explicit agent-based model that simulates the causal effects of four policy instruments on intended and unintended fires. All instruments proved effective in overturning the predominance of highly profitable but risky fire-use and decreasing accidental fires, but none were free from imperfections. The performance of command-and-control proved highly sensitive to the spatial and social reach of enforcement. Side-effects of incentive-based instruments included a disproportionate increase in controlled fires and a reduced acceptance of conservation subsidies, caused by the prohibition of reckless fires, and also indirect deforestation. The instruments that were most effective in reducing deforestation were not the most effective in reducing fires and vice-versa, which suggests that the two goals cannot be achieved with a single policy intervention.

show abstract

Record-breaking warming and extreme drought in the Amazon rainforest during the course of El Niño 2015–2016

Cited by 515 publications

References 34 publications

Vegetation greenness and land carbon-flux anomalies associated with climate variations: a focus on the year 2015

Vegetation greenness and land carbon-flux anomalies associated with climate variations: a focus on the year 2015

Impacts of different ENSO flavors and tropical Pacific convection variability (ITCZ, SPCZ) on austral summer rainfall in South America, with a focus on Peru

Policy instruments to control Amazon fires: A simulation approach

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About