Climate Emergency: Amazon Nears Dangerous Tipping Point

With enough time and forest losses, scientists say, large swaths of the Amazon could fall into an unstoppable spiral that would transform them from lush rainforest into grassy savanna.

The global implications would be profound. The loss of the rainforest would cause a large-scale drying across the region. The circulation of the atmosphere could change in response, altering weather patterns around the world.

And the Amazon has the potential to pour some 90 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as the forest dies off, the equivalent of several years of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Novel statistical analysis shows that more than 75% of the untouched forest has lost stability since the early 2000s, meaning it takes longer to recover after droughts and wildfires.

The greatest loss of stability is in areas closer to farms, roads and urban areas and in regions that are becoming drier, suggesting that forest destruction and global heating are the cause. These factors “may already have pushed the Amazon close to a critical threshold of rainforest dieback”, the scientists conclude.

The study does not enable a prediction of when the tipping point could be reached. But the researchers warned that by the time the triggering of the tipping point could be detected, it would be too late to stop it.