The document discusses the Amazon as a critical element of the Earth system. It notes that the Amazon is a key player in the global carbon cycle, with immense biodiversity and influence on climate through processes like water recycling. However, the Amazon is now threatened by deforestation, degradation, and climate change. Deforestation has increased greenhouse gas emissions and reduced rainfall. Up to 25% deforestation could trigger a "savannization" tipping point. Many areas are losing resilience to disturbances like fires and droughts. Sustainable solutions are needed to protect the Amazon's resources and people.

2. The Amazon as a
Critical Element
of the Earth
System
Carlos A. Nobre
Co-Chair, Science Panel for the
Amazon
New York
15 de Setembro de 2022

3. Science Panel for the Amazon
Photo: Diego Mosquera
A global authority providing state-of-the-art, policy-
relevant science and knowledge about the
Amazon.
To synthesize and communicate scientific knowledge
about the Amazon, integrated with Indigenous and local
knowledge, to accelerate solutions for sustainable and
equitable development.
Mission
Vision

4. Report Structure
Part I: The Amazon as a
Regional Entity of the Earth
System
Part II: Anthropogenic changes in
the Amazon: Drivers & Impacts
Part III: The Solution Space: Finding
Sustainable Pathways for the Amazon
12 Working Groups, 34 chapters, 1,297
pages
Chapters
1-13
Chapters
14-24
Chapters
25-34

5. In popular culture, the Amazon has been portrayed
for a long time as a ‘green hell’. But. ...

6. Photo by Sebastião Salgado from the book “Terra”
A ‘GREEN PARADISE’ FOR ITS PEOPLE!
But for traditional populations, a rather
different vision...

7. MESSAGE
The diversity of the region’s
climate, water flows,
geomorphology, and soils led
to the development of an
equally diverse mosaic of
terrestrial and aquatic
ecosystems with extraordinary,
unique, and irreplaceable
biodiversity and complex
biogeophysical interactions.

8. Modern Amazon
Biodiversity
The Amazon lowland forests houses the greatest
concentration of biodiversity on Earth, with >13% of the
world’s described species compressed into about 0.5% of
Earth’s land and <0.001% of Earth’s water.
> 40,000 seed plants
(>16,000 tree species)
(* species across all basin; 95% from the lowlands)
Rich biodiversity of many Amazonian forests, in the west
especially, help prevent large regions of the Amazon
from becoming a net carbon source.

9. MESSAGE
The Amazon River Basin is one of the most
critical elements of the Earth’s climate system,
due to its tropical location, bounded to the west
by the Andes, and its immense spatial extent.

10. The main processes of the Amazon hydroclimate system are
associated with the rainforest's presence

11. The Amazonian ecosystem is regarded as the largest source of
biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs)
• Aerosol particles constitute an essential ingredient
for cloud formation and development.
• BVOCs and aerosols provide nuclei for the
formation of warm and cold clouds, which result in
precipitation, sustaining the hydrological cycle and
biological reproduction

12. Climate stabilization and Water Recycling
• The Amazon basin is the planet’s
largest and most intense land-based
convective centre, exerting strong
influences on atmospheric circulation
both within and outside the tropics
• Key heat source for the atmosphere
and annual rainfall ~ 2000 to 3000
mm
• Very efficient recycling of water (50%
water recycling)
• ~70% of the moisture flow in the La
Plata Basin depends on moisture

13. UndisturbedA
mazon forest
has a net
removal rate
of
> 1 billion
tonnes/year of
carbon dioxide
from the
atmosphere
The Amazon accounts for
about 16% of terrestrial
productivity and 150-200
billion tons of carbon stored
in soils and vegetation

14. © Celestia
The Amazon as a Key Regional Entity of the Earth System in the Anthropocene
Key player in global carbon cycle
• 15% of global NPP and a key carbon sink for
anthropogenic CO2 (Field et al., 1998)
• Stores between 150-200 billion ton of carbon in below
and above ground biomass (Saatchi et al., 2011; Malhi
et al. 2021)
Powerful hydrology
• ~ 15% of freshwater flow into the global oceans
(Barthem et al., 2004)
• Amazon river discharge of 220,000 m3/s (Molinier et
al., 1996; Costa et al. 2021)
Biodiversity richness
• Highest biodiversity on Earth (Zapata-Ríos et al. 2021)
• ~ 16,000 tree species (Steege et al., 2013; Moraes R. et al. 2021)
• ~5,000 vertebrate species (Silva et al., 2005; Zapata-Ríos et al. 2021)
Climate stabilization and water recycling
• Key heat source for the atmosphere
and Annual rainfall ~ 2000 to 3000 mm
and very efficient recycling of water
(Nobre et al., 1991; Costa et al. 2021)
Helps to maintain cultural and
ethnic diversity
• ~ 400 indigenous tribes
(survivalinternational.org),
language diversity (Gorenflo, et
al., 2012; Neves et al. 2021)
A ‘GREEN PARADISE’ FOR
PLANET EARTH!

15. The fate of Amazon is
central to the solution
to global crises
• There is a need to better understand and create an
early warning system for the stability of the Amazon
carbon store and sink in light of global environment
change.
• Loss or reversal of the Amazon carbon sink would
have global consequences and make it more
difficult to limit peak warming to the internationally-
agreed target of 1.5°C or 2°C.
• The most important changes in the hydroclimate
system are happening in the transition between the
dry and the rainy seasons, with a lengthening of the
dry season – a tropical savanna climate instead of a
tropical rainforest climate
• Future biosphere-atmosphere interaction studies
should focus on these particular seasons.
Márcio Isensee e Sá

16. Photo: Araquém Alcântara
https://www.theamazonwewant.org
LET’S SAVE AMAZONIA.
LET’S SAVE THE AMAZONIAN POPULATION!
THE AMAZON WE WANT!
THANK YOU!
GRACIAS!
OBRIGADA!

17. 1
e c o l m o d .u n a l .e d u .c o Ecolmod @Ecolmod Ecolmod_unal Ecolmod
The Amazon under threat:
Drivers and Impacts of
deforestation and degradation
Dolors Armenteras
L an d sc ap e E c o lo g y an d C o n se rvat io n
M e m b e r Sc ien t ific P an e l fo r Th e A m azo n
V ic e P re sid e n t IA L E In t e rn at io n al
UNIVERSIDAD
NACIONAL
DE COLOMBIA

18. 50%
25%
18%
7%
Tropical forests

19. 7.5 million
km2

20. 62%

21. 38
%
38%

22. THREATS

23. 7
1,111,974 km2
deforested since 1985
e c o l m o d .u n a l .e d u .c o Scientific PaEncoel
mlod
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Since 2019

24. 8
Ecolmod @Ecolmod Ecolmod_unal Ecolmod
Deforestation
15x
Berenguer et al, 2021, Science Panel for the Amazon

25. Bullock et al, 2020, Global Change Biology
1995 - 2017:
-1 million km² of remaining
Amazonian forests have been
degraded
- 17% of remaining forests
Forest degradation

26. DRIVERS

27. Agricultural expansion
Berenguer et al, 2021, Science Panel for the Amazon

28. Agricultural expansion
Berenguer et al, 2021, Science Panel for the Amazon

29. @UNODC
Illicit
crops

30. Mining
Berenguer et al, 2021, Science Panel for the Amazon

31. This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA-NC
Illegal gold mining
@Federico Mosquera-Guerra
Illegal dredges

32. @Federico Mosquera-Guerra
Oil infrastructure

33. @Federico Mosquera-Guerra
Hydro damns

34. https://trase.earth/explore
International
demand

35. https://trase.earth/explore

36. IMPACTS

37. Impacts of deforestation
Silvério et al, 2015, Env. Res. Letters
Locally:
1.05 – 3.06 °C hotter

38. Impacts of deforestation
Silvério et al, 2015, Env. Res. Letters
Locally:
1.05 – 3.06 °C hotter
Landscape:
2.8 °C hotter

39. Impacts of deforestation
25-50% of recycled rain
Eltarir & Bras, 1994, Q. J. R. Meteorol. Society

40. Impacts of deforestation
Spracklen et al, 2018, Annual Reviews
Regionally:
19% less rainfall

41. 201
9
Impacts of deforestation
Van Der Ent et al, 2010, Water Resou. Research
• La Plata Basin:
- Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and
Uruguay
- 70% of precipitation comes from moisture
recycled in the Amazon

42. 201
9
Impacts of deforestation
CO₂

43. 201
9
Impacts of deforestation
CO₂
Brazil – the world’s 6th largest
emitter
Deforestation = 66% of
Brazilian emissions

44. Impacts of Degradation – C Stock loss and recovery
Silva et al, 2018, Phil. Trans. of the Royal Soc. B
Burned Amazonian forests:
- 30y after a fire = 25% less C
stocks

45. Short and Long term human effects

46. Long term human effects

47. e c o l m o d .u n a l .e d u .c o
31
Ecolmod @Ecolmod Ecolmod_unal Ecolmod
Thank you

48. What do we know about tipping points in
Amazonian ecosystems?
Marina Hirota
Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
Universidade Estadual de Campinas
Brazil
NYC
Sep, 2022

49. Rainfall-related tipping points
1,000 < Rainfall < 2,000 mm/yr
Dry season length > 7 months
Staver et al., 2011, Science
Hirota et al., 2011, Science
How far are we from
reaching such
thresholds?

50. Climate has been changing within the Amazonian limits
Adapted from Marengo et al., 2021, SPA report

51. Climate has been changing within the Amazonian limits
Adapted from Marengo et al., 2021, SPA report

52. Variability of the dry season length and intensity (1951 - 2017)
Marengo et al., 2021, SPA report
The onset of the rainy
season is delayed in about
15 days in Southern
Amazon

53. Esquivel-Muelbert et al., 2019, Glob Chang Biol
If even not crossing thresholds, we already see changes
Dry season
intensification
Shifts in
structure and
functionality
No measurements
in SE Amz

54. In southeastern parts, Amazonia has become a carbon source
Gatti et al., 2021, Nature
Deforestation
+
Rainfall/Temperature
dry season peak
-
Fires

55. Deforestation tipping point and evapotranspiration feedback
20 – 25%
deforestation
Nobre et al, 2016, PNAS
Lovejoy & Nobre, 2018, Science Advances
Savannization
Aragão (2012) Nature

56. 75% of the basin are losing
resilience
Evidence of resilience loss heterogeneously
spread throughout the basin
Adapted from Boulton et al., 2022
Most of the resilience loss
is associated with road
proximity

57. Potential trajectories: depends on the disturbances
Adapted from Hirota & Flores et al., 2021, SPA report

58. Even if not necessarily crossing known thresholds:
1) Disturbances are highly heterogeneous;
2) So are forests responses and changes in composition and structure;
3) Shifts at any scale can cause tremendous damages to communities,
countries and the planet.

59. Wait and blame uncertainty for not taking
actions as we did with climate change for at least
50 years (when the IPCC first informed us of the
risks)?
Take actions as we did with CFCs in the 80's
and collectively controlled their production to
prevent the ozone layer disappearance, using
the precautionary approach?
Two main ways forward:

60. Obrigada!
Gracias!
Thank you!
Marina Hirota
marinahirota@gmail.com
NYC
Sep, 2022

61. Sustainable and Inclusive Solutions
for a Living Amazon

62. The Amazon – a history of tectonic
movements and climate change
Horn et al. (2010)

63. The Amazon
A goldmine for better living of humanity

64. The Amazon
A goldmine for better living of humanity

65. Using information hidden in the Amazon

66. Using information hidden in the Amazon, however …
High emission scenario (0-16 days)
Lordosis
increased inward curvature
Kyphosis
increased convex curvature
Scoliosis
lateral (toward one side) curvature

67. Information & technology: sustainable and inclusive solutions
Amazon Institute of Technology

68. Information & technology: sustainable and inclusive solutions

69. Information & technology: sustainable and inclusive solutions
Amazon river as an artery of knowledge,
through dynamic and collaborative model

70. Information & technology: sustainable and inclusive solutions
Road Map

71. Education, Science and
Technology is the only
way to protect the
natural resources and
ensure a better life
quality for urban and
riverine populations in
the Amazon.