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Research Article

Persistent effects of a severe drought on Amazonian forest canopy

Sassan Saatchi, Salvi Asefi-Najafabady, Yadvinder Malhi, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Liana O. Anderson, Ranga B. Myneni, and Ramakrishna Nemani
PNAS January 8, 2013 110 (2) 565-570; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1204651110
Sassan Saatchi
aJet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109;
bInstitute of Environment, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90045;
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  • For correspondence: saatchi@jpl.nasa.gov
Salvi Asefi-Najafabady
bInstitute of Environment, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90045;
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Yadvinder Malhi
cEnvironmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom;
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Luiz E. O. C. Aragão
dCollege of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Devon EX4 4RJ, United Kingdom;
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Liana O. Anderson
cEnvironmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QY, United Kingdom;
eRemote Sensing Division, National Institute for Space Research (INPE), Sao Jose dos Campos, Sao Paulo 12227-010, Brazil;
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Ranga B. Myneni
fDepartment of Geography and Environment, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215; and
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Ramakrishna Nemani
gBiospheric Sciences Branch, National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035
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  1. Edited by Steven C. Wofsy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, and approved November 12, 2012 (received for review March 19, 2012)

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Abstract

Recent Amazonian droughts have drawn attention to the vulnerability of tropical forests to climate perturbations. Satellite and in situ observations have shown an increase in fire occurrence during drought years and tree mortality following severe droughts, but to date there has been no assessment of long-term impacts of these droughts across landscapes in Amazonia. Here, we use satellite microwave observations of rainfall and canopy backscatter to show that more than 70 million hectares of forest in western Amazonia experienced a strong water deficit during the dry season of 2005 and a closely corresponding decline in canopy structure and moisture. Remarkably, and despite the gradual recovery in total rainfall in subsequent years, the decrease in canopy backscatter persisted until the next major drought, in 2010. The decline in backscatter is attributed to changes in structure and water content associated with the forest upper canopy. The persistence of low backscatter supports the slow recovery (>4 y) of forest canopy structure after the severe drought in 2005. The result suggests that the occurrence of droughts in Amazonia at 5–10 y frequency may lead to persistent alteration of the forest canopy.

  • radar
  • canopy water content
  • rainforest
  • QSCAT
  • canopy disturbance

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: saatchi{at}jpl.nasa.gov.
  • Author contributions: S.S., L.E.O.C.A., R.B.M., and R.N. designed research; S.S., S.A.-N., and L.O.A. performed research; S.S., Y.M., L.E.O.C.A., R.B.M., and R.N. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; S.S. and S.A.-N. analyzed data; and S.S. and Y.M. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1204651110/-/DCSupplemental.

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Persistent impact of drought in Amazonia
Sassan Saatchi, Salvi Asefi-Najafabady, Yadvinder Malhi, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Liana O. Anderson, Ranga B. Myneni, Ramakrishna Nemani
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2013, 110 (2) 565-570; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204651110

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Persistent impact of drought in Amazonia
Sassan Saatchi, Salvi Asefi-Najafabady, Yadvinder Malhi, Luiz E. O. C. Aragão, Liana O. Anderson, Ranga B. Myneni, Ramakrishna Nemani
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jan 2013, 110 (2) 565-570; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204651110
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