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The 2005 Amazon Drought

node · earth · Western and southwestern Amazon Basin

A severe drought concentrated in the western and southwestern basin, described at the time as a once-in-a-century event. Its driver was unusual and instructive: it was not an El Nino drought. It was associated with anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic, which shifted the convergence zone north and left the southwestern Amazon without its wet season. Rivers in Acre and the upper Madeira fell to record lows, communities were stranded, and fire escaped into standing forest on a large scale. Its scientific importance came from the RAINFOR long-term plot network, which had been measuring the same trees for years before the drought struck and could therefore measure what it did rather than infer it. Phillips and colleagues reported in 2009 that the drought reversed the forest's long-standing carbon sink, turning it into a source - the first direct field demonstration that the Amazon's role in the carbon cycle is conditional on rainfall rather than guaranteed by it.

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Assembled from 26 blocks · 1 evidence · 25 related

  1. Story
  2. A severe drought concentrated in the western and southwestern basin, described at the time as a once-in-a-century event. Its driver was unusual and instructive: it was not an El Nino drought. It was associated with anomalously warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic, which shifted the convergence zone north and left the southwestern Amazon without its wet season. Rivers in Acre and the upper Madeira fell to record lows, communities were stranded, and fire escaped into standing forest on a large scale. Its scientific importance came from the RAINFOR long-term plot network, which had been measuring the same trees for years before the drought struck and could therefore measure what it did rather than infer it. Phillips and colleagues reported in 2009 that the drought reversed the forest's long-standing carbon sink, turning it into a source - the first direct field demonstration that the Amazon's role in the carbon cycle is conditional on rainfall rather than guaranteed by it.
  3. Knowledge
  4. Amazon Basin
  5. The 2005 Amazon Drought
  6. Connections
  7. Amazon Basin
  8. The 2010 Amazon Drought
  9. A drought in the southwestern basin reverses the carbon sink
  10. Drought sensitivity of the Amazon is published
  11. Amazon River
  12. Manaus
  13. Moisture Recycling
  14. Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO)
  15. Brazil Nut Tree (Bertholletia excelsa)
  16. Jaguar (Panthera onca)
  17. Forest Degradation
  18. Arc of Deforestation (Arco do Desmatamento)
  19. BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho Highway)
  20. The 2005 Amazon Drought
  21. A drought in the southwestern basin reverses the carbon sink
  22. A second severe drought follows within five years
  23. Aircraft profiles show the eastern Amazon emitting more carbon than it absorbs
  24. The UN climate conference convenes at the mouth of the Amazon
  25. Evidence
  26. Supports the finding that the 2005 drought reversed the Amazon forest carbon sink measured on the RAINFOR permanent plot network. V55 verification basis: not retrieved in this session; the quantified carbon impact is deliberately not stated because it could not be checked.
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