The most extensive land-based study of the Amazon to date reveals it is losing its capacity to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. From a peak of two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in the 1990s, the net uptake by the forest has halved¹ and is now for the first time being overtaken by fossil fuel emissions² in Latin America. The results of this monumental 30-year survey of the South American rainforest, which involved an international team of almost 100 researchers and was led by the University of Leeds, are published in the journal Nature.

 

Over recent decades the remaining Amazon forest has acted as a vast 'carbon sink' -- absorbing more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases -- helping³ to put a brake on the rate of climate change. But this new analysis of forest dynamics⁴ shows a huge surge in the rate of trees dying across the Amazon.

 

Lead author Dr Roel Brienen, from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds, said: "Tree mortality rates have increased by more than a third since the mid-1980s, and this is affecting the Amazon's capacity to store carbon."

 

Initially⁵, an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- a key ingredient for photosynthesis⁶ -- led to a growth spurt⁷ for the Amazon's trees, the researchers say. But the extra carbon appears to have had unexpected consequences.

 

Study co-author Professor Oliver Phillips, also from the University's School of Geography, said: "With time, the growth stimulation⁸ feeds through the system, causing trees to live faster, and so die younger."

 

Recent droughts and unusually high temperatures in the Amazon may also be playing a role. Although the study finds that tree mortality increases began well before an intense drought in 2005, it also shows that drought has killed millions of additional trees.

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