Record heat and drought seen in Amazon during 2015-16 El Niño
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/record-heat-and-drought-seen-in-amazon-during-2015-16-el-nino
The Amazon rainforest experienced record-breaking high temperatures and severe drought during the 2015-16 El Niño, according to a recent study, and the area of drought-stricken forest was 20 percent greater than other extreme #El_Niño events.
This Amazon drought pattern differed from previous El Niños, with drought in the east, and above-average rainfall in the west. Scientists think the precise location of El Niño warming in the Pacific may be responsible: the most recent El Niño saw warming in the Central Pacific, rather in the Eastern Pacific as in 1982-83 and 1997-98 El Niños.
Tree mortality increases and tree growth decreases during severe droughts, with implications for the global carbon cycle. Drought-induced effects reduce the capacity of the Amazon rainforest to store atmospheric CO2, and those effects could, over time, result in the Amazon shifting from being a carbon sink to being a carbon source.
A primary concern for scientists is that as climate change escalates, extreme El Niño events will become more common, with the Amazon Basin having less recovery time between events and therefore losing resilience. If a tipping point is reached, then the Amazon could make a shift from CO2 sink to source, adding significantly to global warming.