The Potsdam Institute of Climate Action Research team, led by Nico Wunderling, employed network analysis to understand the complicated workings of one of Earth’s most valuable and biodiverse carbon sinks. The areas most vulnerable to transformation to savannah are on the forest’s southern outskirts, where continuous clearance for pasture or soy has already weakened the forest’s resilience for years.
Ripple effect
The research team has discovered that even if a dry spell just impacts one particular section of the forest, the damage it causes extends beyond that region by a factor of one to three. Because a lack of rain reduces the amount of water recycled, there will be less rainfall in neighboring areas, placing even more sections of the forest under serious stress.
A new climate normal
Still much to do
“Yet not all is lost,” says Ricarda Winkelmann, co-senior author of the study and leader of tipping elements research at the Potsdam Institute. “That is because a good part of the forest is still in relatively stable conditions. The network effects of dry spells are likely limited to certain areas in the forest’s southeast and southwest—which happen to be those areas where the forest has been suffering from the human hand already, in clearing forest for pasture or soy.” The study was funded by the German Research Foundation, the Sao Paulo Research Foundation, the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the Leibniz Association, the European Research Council, the Dutch Research Council, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research Innovational Research Incentives Schemes Veni, the Stordalen Foundation, and the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.
