Tipping points in climate modeling: Risk of Amazon Die-back and the JMA-MRI-GSM0130. 60 km - TL319L60 global climate change projections
Year: 2009
Type: article
Abstract: The Amazon region can be categorized as being at great risk from climate variability and change. The risk is not only due to projected climate change but also through synergistic interactions with existing threats not related to climate change, such as land learance, forest fragmentation and fire. Some model projections (Betts et al. 2004, Cox et al, 2004, Oyama and Nobre 2004, and Sitch et al 2008) exhibit over the next several decades a risk of an abrupt and irreversible replacement of forests by savannah with large-scale loss of biodiversity and loss of livelihoods for people in the region. This process is referred as the Die-back of the Amazon, and it represents a process simulated by few climate models, where after reaching a tipping point in climate (CO2 concentration, air temperature) the forest stops behaving as a carbon sink and becomes a carbon source, and after that the forest enter in an state of collapse, being replaced by a savanna type vegetation (savannization). The main purpose of this study is to investigate and assess the risk associated with global warming and consequent climate change in the region and the feasibility of the die back of the Amazon and the savannization of the Amazon region, and to investigate if this possible scenario of future climate is depicted in the high resolution future climate change scenarios generated by the JAM-GSM0130-60km -TL319L60 climate model.
Authors: Marengo, José Antônio, Nobre, Carlos Augusto, Alves, Lincoln Muniz, Pesquero, José Fernando, Vergara, Walter
Institutions: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, World Bank
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6996981428