Pronounced loss of Amazon rainforest resilience since the early 2000s
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Abstract
The resilience of the Amazon rainforest to climate and land-use change is crucial for biodiversity, regional climate and the global carbon cycle. Deforestation and climate change, via increasing dry-season length and drought frequency, may already have pushed the Amazon close to a critical threshold of rainforest dieback. Here, we quantify changes of Amazon resilience by applying established indicators (for example, measuring lag-1 autocorrelation) to remotely sensed vegetation data with a focus on vegetation optical depth (1991–2016). We find that more than three-quarters of the Amazon rainforest has been losing resilience since the early 2000s, consistent with the approach to a critical transition. Resilience is being lost faster in regions with less rainfall and in parts of the rainforest that are closer to human activity. We provide direct empirical evidence that the Amazon rainforest is losing resilience, risking dieback with profound implications for biodiversity, carbon storage and climate change at a global scale.
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Satellite observations from across the Amazon suggest that forest resilience has been decreasing since the early 2000s, possibly as a result of global changes.
“Satellite observations from across the Amazon suggest that forest resilience has been decreasing since the early 2000s33, possibly as a result of global changes.”
From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [33]
Some stable forests are showing signs of fragility.
“Currently, 86% of the Amazon biome may be in a stable forest state (Extended Data Fig. 1b), but some of these stable forests are showing signs of fragility33.”
From Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system (2024) · cites this paper as [33]
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- Authors
- Boulton, C. A., Lenton, T. M., & Boers, N.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Boulton, Chris A.
- Venue
- Nature Climate Change
- Published
- 2022-03
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 271-278
- ISSN
- 1758-678X (ISSN-L)
- 1758-6798
- OpenAlex
- W4220915571
- Cited by
- 681
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 144 · 2025: 155 · 2024: 169 · 2023: 129 · 2022: 83 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 51.06
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Nature Climate Change (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Research Square (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Publication Database PIK (Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2018-046)
- EC | Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (820970)
- Alan Turing Institute
- Volkswagen Foundation
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Ecosystem dynamics and resilience
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Remote Sensing in Agriculture
- Keywords
- Amazon rainforest, resilience, tipping points, vegetation optical depth, lag-1 autocorrelation, deforestation, land use change, drought, dry season length, rainfall, carbon storage, remote sensing
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