Abstract
The existence of multiple climate‐vegetation equilibria in Tropical South America is investigated under present‐day climate conditions with the use of an atmospheric general circulation model coupled to a potential vegetation model. Two stable equilibria were found. One corresponds to the current biome distribution. The second is a new equilibrium state: savannas replace eastern Amazonian forests and a semi‐desert area appears in the driest portion of Northeast Brazil. If sustainable development and conservation policies were not able to halt the increasing environmental degradation in those areas, then land use changes could, per se, tip the climate‐vegetation system towards this new alternative drier stable equilibrium state, with savannization of parts of Amazonia and desertification of the driest area of Northeast Brazil, and with potential adverse impacts on the rich species diversity in the former region and water resources in the latter.
Keywords
BiomeAmazonianDesertificationVegetation (pathology)Amazon rainforestTropical vegetationEnvironmental scienceDeforestation (computer science)GeographyTropical climateClimatologyTropicsEcologyAgroforestryEcosystemGeology
Affiliated Institutions
Related Publications
Niche‐based modelling as a tool for predicting the risk of alien plant invasions at a global scale
Abstract Predicting the probability of successful establishment of plant species by matching climatic variables has considerable potential for incorporation in early warning sys...
GENERALITY OF LEAF TRAIT RELATIONSHIPS: A TEST ACROSS SIX BIOMES
Convergence in interspecific leaf trait relationships across diverse taxonomic groups and biomes would have important evolutionary and ecological implications. Such convergence ...
Decline of the North American avifauna
Staggering decline of bird populations Because birds are conspicuous and easy to identify and count, reliable records of their occurrence have been gathered over many decades in...
The Relationship between Large-Scale Convective Rainfall and Cold Cloud over the Western Hemisphere during 1982-84
Estimates of areal- and time-averaged convective precipitation derived from geostationary satellite imagery using a simple thresholding technique are presented. The estimates ar...
From tropics to tundra: Global convergence in plant functioning
Despite striking differences in climate, soils, and evolutionary history among diverse biomes ranging from tropical and temperate forests to alpine tundra and desert, we found s...
Publication Info
- Year
- 2003
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 30
- Issue
- 23
- Citations
- 318
- Access
- Closed
External Links
Social Impact
Altmetric
PlumX Metrics
Social media, news, blog, policy document mentions
Citation Metrics
318
OpenAlex
Cite This
Marcos Daisuke Oyama,
Carlos A. Nobre
(2003).
A new climate‐vegetation equilibrium state for Tropical South America.
Geophysical Research Letters
, 30
(23)
.
https://doi.org/10.1029/2003gl018600
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1029/2003gl018600