Overview
- An international team synthesized over 30 years of Amazon field measurements to characterize a hotter, drought‑driven regime with no modern analogue.
- Analyses of the 2015 and 2023 El Niño droughts at two Amazon sites identified the same critical soil‑moisture threshold tied to severe tree stress.
- Models project hot droughts could occur on as many as 150 days a year by 2100, including during what is currently the wet season.
- Tree mortality is projected to increase by about 55% during such events due to hydraulic failure and carbon starvation.
- Researchers warn the rainforest could shift from a carbon sink to a carbon source and say similar conditions may develop in Africa and Southeast Asia without deeper emissions cuts.