Available online at www.sciencedirect.
com
‘Tipping points’ for the Amazon forest
Carlos Afonso Nobre and Laura De Simone Borma
The stability of the Amazon forest–climate equilibrium is being
perturbed by a number of human drivers of change (e.g.
deforestation, global warming, forest fires, higher CO2
concentrations, and increased frequency of droughts and
floods). Quantitative assessments for the maintenance of the
tropical forest indicate that ‘tipping points’ may exist for total
deforested area (>40%) and for global warming (DT > 3–48C).
The likelihood of exceeding a tipping point can be greatly
exacerbated by increases in forest fires and droughts, but
quantification of those effects is still lacking. Forest resilience
can be significantly increased if CO2 ‘fertilization’ effect is
proven to be taking place for tropical forests, but it can be offset
by continued increases in temperature, rainfall seasonality, and
forest fires.
Address
Center for Earth System Science, National Institute for Space Research
– INPE, São José dos Campos, SP, Brazil
Corresponding author: Nobre, Carlos Afonso (carlos.nobre@inpe.br)
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36
This review comes from the inaugural issues
Edited by Rik Leemans and Anand Patwardhan
Available online 8th August 2009
1877-3435/$ – see front matter
# 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
DOI 10.1016/j.cosust.2009.07.003
Introduction
The critical importance of the Amazon forest for the
maintenance of tropical biodiversity (e.g. [1]), as a sig-
nificant carbon pool (e.g. [2]) and for local and regional
climate stability [3] has been recognized for some time.
The functioning of the Amazon as an undisturbed
regional entity can also be seen as providing key ecosys-
tems services [4] and the most obvious one is its role as a
large carbon pool and even as carbon sink, though the
latter is not firmly established as yet [5]. However,
anthropogenic disturbances of many varieties are all that
tropical forests have been subjected to in the last half
century. The tropical forests of South America are no
exception and are under the increasing influence of a
suite of human drivers of environmental change, mostly
related to unprecedented rates of land cover change for
the last 30 years or longer [6]. The main human drivers of
change for the Amazon are forest clearing (clear-cut
deforestation), forest degradation and fragmentation,
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36
climate change associated to global warming, increased
atmospheric concentration of CO2, forest fires, and poten-
tial increases of climate extremes (e.g. droughts). They
are all interconnected in complex ways.
A scientific question that has been gaining key import-
ance in recent years is the evaluation of the so-called
critical or ‘tipping’ points of the Earth system [7], aimed
at quantitatively establishing the likelihood of crossing a
threshold that could cause an element of the Earth system
to jump to another stable equilibrium. The climate–
vegetation equilibrium in the Amazon has been identified
as one such tipping point of the Earth system [7] possibly
presenting bi-stability [8]: one equilibrium state is
obviously the present climate–vegetation state with tro-
pical forests covering most of the Basin and a second
stable state would have tropical savannas (or other type of
drought-adapted and fire-adapted vegetation) replacing
forests in a large portions of the Basin. Once a tipping
point is transgressed, the time scale for fully reaching the
new equilibrium state can be ‘abrupt’ in comparison to
natural time scales of change, but still may take several
decades to a century for the establishment of the new
vegetation–climate state [3,7].
In the following sections, we will review current knowl-
edge on the human drivers of change and the impact they
are already causing or are projected to cause in the
Amazon system with a view toward identifying tipping
points of that system that would lead to irreversible
changes in the functioning of the tropical forest. Such
changes can reach an extent as to affect greatly the
capacity of the Amazon forest to render ecosystems
services [4,9,10,11,12], or other drivers which
might be somewhat attenuated by increased resilience
of the forest because of CO2 effects [13].
In the context of this paper, ‘savannization’ has been
defined as an environmental change in tropical South
America that would lead to changes in the regional
climate because of either land cover change [3,10] or
global warming [11] in such way as increase the length
of the dry season and turn the regional climate into the
typical climatic envelope of savannas. It is a statement on
regional climate change and not on the ecological pro-
cesses of forest replacement. On the other hand, ‘secon-
darization’ refers to subjecting the forest to clear-cutting
and then to a repeated cycle of secondary growth, clearing
and fire penetration, that leads to a significantly impo-
verished form of secondary growth [14]. Secondariza-
tion can happen in the absence of savannization and vice
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versa. However, the most likely scenario is that both
processes would be taking place simultaneously, operat-
ing at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and strongly
interacting: large-scale drivers such as basin-scale
deforestation and global warming might change the Ama-
zon climate toward a savanna-like climate with longer dry
seasons. Increased forest fragmentation and degradation,
coupled to more frequent penetration of forest and sec-
ondary growth fires, and higher frequency of intense
droughts (the latter because of global warming), on the
other hand, would act locally to reduce the resilience of
the forest and induce its replacement by more fire-toler-
ant, typical savanna species and dominated by grasses
[14,15]. Other drivers of change might increase resili-
ence of the forest. Uncertainty of changes of the hydro-
logical cycle because of global warming prevent
conclusive statements on the increase of the dry season;
global warming might likely increase not only the fre-
quency of droughts but also the frequency of floods that is
an acceleration of the hydrological cycle. The severe
drought in 2005 over western–southwestern Amazon
[16] was followed by floods only six months later [17].
Above-normal rainfall all over the Amazon in the first five
months of 2009 has led to record-breaking floods of the
Amazon River and some of the main tributaries [18].
Plentiful rainfall can in principle increase forest resili-
ence. Lastly, atmospheric [CO2] increases has been
hypothesized as being contributing to a beneficial effect
on plant productivity (the so-called CO2 ‘fertilization’
effect) underpinning forest inventory measurements of
net carbon uptake by the Amazon forest [19] over the last
decade. If that positive effect continues into the future
[13], it may counteract to some extent the negative
impacts of deforestation, global warming, and enhanced
fires.
Human drivers of change and impacts over
the Amazon
Land cover change and regional climate change
There are nine Amazonian countries, but 80% of
deforestation takes place within Brazil [20]. Globally,
Amazon deforestation corresponds to 47.8% of the total
tropical forest loss [21], a rate that is four times larger than
the second largest rate at 12.8% for Indonesia. Fifty
percent of tropical deforestation happens within 6% of
the total area [22]. In the Amazon the hot spots of
deforestation are spread mostly in the savanna–forest
transition region, the so-called ‘deforestation arch’, over
the southern and southeastern edges of the forest.
Over 750 000 km2 of tropical forests have been cleared in
the Brazilian Amazon up to 2008 and annual deforesta-
tion rates have varied from peaks of 27 000 km2 (2004) or
29 000 km2 (1995) to lower values of about 12 000 km2 in
2007 and 2008 [6]. Selective logging has affected large
areas of forest: an average of 12 000 km2 yearly between
1999 and 2002 [23]. This trend of forest degradation has
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Amazon tipping points Nobre and Borma 29
been confirmed by recent satellite-based analysis, where
15 000 km2 in 2007 and 25 000 km2 in 2008 of forest were
mapped as being degraded [6]. Over 70% of deforested
area has been converted to pasture [20] and soya crops
have recently expanded into the Amazon [15,24].
Following current practices, including paving main roads
and opening tens of thousands of kilometers of second-
ary roads [25,26], it is projected that deforestation could
reach between 30% and 50% of the total forest cover
[20].
Modeling studies of regional climate impacts of large-
scale replacement of the Amazon forest by pasture or
cropland indicate a general tendency for decreased pre-
cipitation, evapotranspiration and runoff, and increased
surface air temperature [10,27], although there remains
some uncertainty as to the effect of heterogeneous pat-
terns of subregional land cover change by increasing
precipitation locally through the so-called ‘forest breeze’
effect [28,29]. On the other hand, modeling studies of
surface hydrology suggest that response depends on the
scale of changes [30] and evapotranspiration could be
reduced and runoff could increase for deforestation in
excess of 50% of the basin, in the absence of changes in
rainfall [31]. Observations of climate change over defor-
ested areas confirm increases of surface temperature and
decreases in evapotranspiration [32], however changes in
precipitation have been more difficult to detect. Recent
analysis of satellite-based estimates of cloudiness and
rainfall over deforested areas seems to confirm earlier
results [33] of increase of nonprecipitating cloudiness and
decrease of dry season precipitation [34]. There have
been suggestions that changes in the distribution of cloud
condensation nuclei (CCN) because of biomass burning
may inhibit the formation of precipitating droplets in
clouds [35].
Climate extremes and forest fires
The expectation of increased droughts in the Amazon
because of climate change of large-scale deforestation
gave rise to rainfall suppression experiments in central–
eastern [36,37] and eastern Amazon [38,39], whereas
forests that can withstand short-term droughts were
shown to be vulnerable to long-term droughts. Despite
an increase in the dominance of lianas possibly because of
[CO2] enrichment [40,41] lianas and palm trees are the
most vulnerable species to continued droughts [36] fol-
lowed by upper canopy trees because of large radiation
exposure [37]. Initially, the forest acts as a carbon sink
because of decreased soil carbon emission driven by low
soil moisture, to become eventually a carbon source over
time because of biomass decay [38].
The intense drought over the western and southwestern
Amazon in 2005 gave rise to several studies analyzing the
meteorological response [16,42,43], indicating the anom-
alous warming of the tropical North Atlantic and its cause,
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36
30 Inaugural issues
and the ecological response [19,44,45]. During the
drought period, there appears to have happened a green-
ing of the vegetation [45], which has been observed more
generally during the dry season for terra firme forests and it
is attributed to higher radiation and evapotranspiration
[46–48] for areas with annual rainfall in excess of
1700 mm and ecological adaptations such as deep roots
[49] and hydraulic redistribution mechanisms [50]. How-
ever, the observed greening over the short term may have
turned into a carbon source over the mid-term (two to
three years) [19], suggesting an overall vulnerability of the
forest to intense droughts.
Such vulnerability can be sharply increased by forest
fires. The geographical domain of tropical forests is
constrained by fire as much as it is by climatic and
edaphic factors [51], giving the high humidity and low
accumulation of flammable biomass and large-scale for-
ests fires may have occurred naturally during extreme
droughts every 100–200 years [52]. Tropical forest
species are poorly adapted to fires and even low intensity
forest fires can lead to augmented tree mortality [14].
Human activities are drastically altering forest dynamics
in tropical forests through a synergistic effect of forest
fire, land use and land cover change and climate change
[44,53,54] and 28% of the Brazilian Amazon forest faces
increasing forest risks since they are within 10 km of a
source of fire [52].
Extreme droughts such as the one of 1997–1998 because
of a mega El Niño event can lead to widespread forest
fires which may have affected 200 000 km2 in tropical
South America and Indonesia [55–60]. Forest fires are
exacerbated by man-made agricultural fires which escape
control and initiate fires in drought-stressed adjacent
forest areas [44]. Compared to the slow process of veg-
etation growth and carbon assimilation, rapid mortality,
and biomass consumption by forest fires favor grass
species as dominating canopy, diminishing tree cover,
promoting renewable flammable biomass for repeated
fires [61]. That can become another tipping point for
tropical forests. In sum, land use and land cover change,
droughts and fire reinforce each other on a positive feed-
back. Only very recently, modeling of forest dieback (or
savannization) introduced the impact of fire [62,63], and
suggested that forest fires can reduce significantly the
resilience of the Amazon forest in addition to deforesta-
tion and global warming.
Global warming and climate change
In the recent decades, temperature increase in the Ama-
zon has been around 0.258C/decade [64] (compare to
estimated 0.18C/century from glacial to interglacial
periods [65], and projections of temperature increase
for this century range from 1.88C to 5.18C, with higher
values for the dry season [66] of even up to 88C or higher
for scenarios of forest dieback [67].
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36
Climate change because of global warming was hypoth-
esized as potentially causing forest dieback in the Ama-
zon [68,69] in simulations of the Hadley Centre climate
model and that was explained in terms of sharp reductions
of rainfall because of SST forcing from both the Pacific
and Atlantic Oceans [67,70] and the role of the veg-
etation–climate feedback [67,71,72]. Amazon forest die-
back, in its turn, would be a positive feedback for global
warming making the large forest carbon pool of about 90–
120 Pg C [5,73] go from being a supposedly carbon sink of
about 0.6 Pg C/year presently [5] to a strong carbon source
by 2050 [74,75]. However, there is uncertainty in climate
projections of the hydrological cycle (precipitation)
among IPCC AR4 climate models, where models failed
to project a consistent change either for decrease or
increase of rainfall [76] throughout this century for the
basin. However, most models projected a decrease of dry
season rainfall [11,12,13,76]. Additionally, droughts
such as the 2005 one might become more frequent in
the future [70] because of increased north–south SST
gradients in the tropical Atlantic Ocean [70,77,78] associ-
ated to reduced dry season rainfall (such as the 2005
drought [42], or to reduced wet season rainfall because
of enhanced El Niño events in the tropical Pacific. The
critical threshold for forest maintenance is related to the
amount of soil moisture in the dry season [3] and is
reached when wet season rainfall is no longer sufficient
to recharge fully soil moisture depleted by a severe
preceding drought [47]. Trend analysis of long-term
climate records has not shown increased trend of droughts
[79] and have shown linked decadal climate variability to
the Pacific Decadal Oscillation [80]. Projected changes in
the frequency of droughts because of global warming are
not apparent, except perhaps along the Atlantic coast [81].
When the full range of IPCC climate change scenarios
from a suite of climate models are considered, a trend
toward forest replacement by lower biomass vegetation
types (e.g. savannas or seasonal forests) appeared for
southern–southeastern Amazon because of a combination
of temperature and rainfall effects lengthening the dry
season in most models by 2100 [11,82–84] but that
effect was substantially reduced if CO2 ‘fertilization’
effect (see next section) of the tropical forest is con-
sidered to be important [13].
Negative feedbacks: CO2 ‘fertilization’ effect and
increased rainfall
The increase of water-use efficiency of vegetation
because of the so-called CO2 ‘fertilization’ effect
[85,86] could, in principle, increase the resilience of
the Amazon forests and counter to some degree enhanced
vulnerability because of deforestation, global warming,
and forest fires. In theory, the general mechanism behind
the CO2 assimilation enhancement is that the plants
respond to the enrichment of [CO2] through an increase
in the photosynthetic rate. Increased production allows
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 Amazon tipping points Nobre and Borma 31

increased leaf area development. Because of the relation-

ship between carbon assimilation and transpiration, both

forest cover. Tendency toward savannization

mediated by plant stomates, higher [CO2] limits the

equilibrium state: savannas replace eastern

(i) current biome distribution and (ii) a new
deforestation exceeds 40% of the original
transpiration loss, increasing the leaf water status, which

Two stable vegetation–climate equilibria:

Reduction in precipitation occurs mainly
in dry season and is more evident when
Replacement of forest by savanna-like
also favor increased leaf area growth [87].

Vegetation change

vegetation in southern Amazon

However, the question of how tropical forests respond to
increased atmospheric [CO2] is far from being resolved, in
part because of the lack of FACE-type experiments for
tropical ecosystems [13]. CO2 enrichment experiments

over S-SE Amazon

Amazonian forests
for mid-latitude forests have showed that for a 50%
increase in atmospheric [CO2], NPP is increased by
23% [85], but the long-term response is not clear [88],

Summary of key vegetation changes in the Amazon in response to deforestation and global warming from a selection of modeling studies
specially when nitrogen availability if considered [89].
Modeling studies calculated NPP increases for [CO2]
doubling alone between 12% and 76% [90]. However,

14.9%
18.2%
DP (%)

0.2%
2.2%
5.8%
9.2%
20%
when the full range of climate changes is considered,

NA
there is an average decline of 79 Pg C/C for the 11 models
considered, with very large intermodel variability [91].

DT (8C)
Modeling studies indicate that NPP may increase much

+2.58C

+0.88C
+1.78C
+2.28C
+2.68C
+2.88C
+3.18C
more for tropical forests in comparison to temperate

NA
forests [92], but, when climate change and CO2 effects
are all taken into account in the Hadley Centre coupled
climate–dynamic vegetation model, for instance, NPP for
Human drivers of change

the Amazon is reduced by 33% [78]. On the other hand,

(current climatological SSTs)

No-human drivers; current
Progressive deforestation
when 14 IPCC AR4 global climate model scenarios were
studied taken into consideration the effect of [CO2]
scenarios (pasture)
Total deforestation

increase on photosynthesis, much less forest conversion

climate conditions
to savanna or seasonal forest was projected to the end of
the century [13].

100%
Increased frequency of climate extremes may already be
20%
40%
50%
60%
80%
happening over South America because of climate change
[93] and they correspond to more intense droughts and
more intense floods, as evidenced by the record-breaking
flood of 2009 [18] in the Amazon. Increased frequency of
Model characteristics

abundant rainfall years may increase forest resilience by

COLA AGCM (SiB, T062L28)

providing a residual soil moisture excess carried out to the

CPTEC-PVM forced by

following year.
CPTEC/COLA AGCM
Sampaio et al. [10] CPTEC-INPE AGCM

Discussion and conclusions

(SSiB, T062L28)
(SSiB, T062L42

The stability of the Amazon forest–climate equilibrium is

being perturbed by a number of human drivers of
environmental change. Quantitative assessments of ‘tip-
ping points’ for that equilibrium can become important
guidance for conservation policies at local, regional, and
global scales, since they would indicate the likelihood of
Reference

Deforestation Nobre et al. [3]

crossing a threshold in the near, mid-term, or long-term.

Oyama and

Table 1 summarizes current knowledge on the sensitivity

Nobre [8]

of the Amazon forest to deforestation and global warming

based on a selection of modeling studies mentioned
above.
experiment

Bi-stability
Modeling
Table 1

Analysis of human drivers in isolation indicates that

around 40% of clearing of Amazon forest area and repla-
cement by pasture or cropland probably marks a tipping

www.sciencedirect.com Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2009, 1:28–36
Table 1 (Continued )
Modeling Reference Model characteristics
experiment
Global Cox et al. [68] HadCM3LC + HadOCC + TRIFFID;
Warming fully coupled climate/carbon
cycle simulation
Cox et al. [69] and HadCM3LC + HadOCC + TRIFFID;
Betts et al. [67] fully coupled climate/carbon
cycle simulation
Scholze et al. [82] DGVM (LPJ) forced by 52 climate
model simulations from 16 AGCMs
Global Salazar et al. [11] CPTEC-PVM forced by 15 IPCC
warming AR4 model climate scenarios
Cook and Vizy [83] CPTEC-PVM forced by MM5 RCM
(60 km resolution; 24 vertical levels)
climate scenarios (lateral and surface
boundary conditions from CCCMA
IPCC AR4 model)
Malhi et al. [12,84] MCWD (maximum climatological water
deficit + regional rainfall in Amazonia
(current climate and projections
from IPCC AR4)
Lapola et al. [13] CPTEC-PVM2 forced by 14 IPCC AR4 Increasing CO2 level
models climate scenarios from 4 AGCMs (SRES A2 and B1) + CO2
fertilization effect. Period: 2070–2099
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Human drivers of change
Increasing atmospheric CO2
level. IS92a scenario without
radiative effects of sulphate
aerosols. Period: 1860–2100
Increasing atmospheric CO2 level.
IS92a scenario without radiative
effects of sulphate aerosols.
Period: 1860–2100
Increasing atmospheric CO2 level
(SRES A1B, A2 and B1).
Period: 2071–2100
Increasing atmospheric CO2 levels
(A2 and B1). Periods: 2020–2029;
2050–2059 and 2090–2099
Increasing atmospheric CO2 level
(SRES A2). Period: 2081–2100
Increasing atmospheric CO2 level
(SRES A2). Period: 2070–2099
32 Inaugural issues
DT (8C) DP (%) Vegetation change
NA NA Global vegetation carbon loss: 2050:
the land biosphere as a whole switches
from being a weak sink for CO2 to being
a strong source. The reduction in terrestrial
carbon is associated with a widespread
climate-driven loss of soil carbon
2100: the modeled CO2 concentration is
about 980 ppmv, 250 ppmv higher than
the standard IS92a scenario
+9.28C 64% Forest dieback starting at 2050.
Dominance of bare soil
Ranges: <28C, NA For DT >38C. 38% probability of Tropical
2–38C, >38 South America regions shift from forest
to nonforest vegetation in 10% of area
and more frequent wildfires are likely (>60%)
1–48C (B1) and NA Replacement of forest by savanna-like
2–68C (A2) vegetation increases with time: 3% (decrease
of the tropical forest) 2020–2029; 9% 2050–2059;
18% 2090–2099 over S-SE Amazon
+2–+48C 45% 70% reduction in the extent of the Amazon rain
forest. North of about 15 S the rain forest is
primarily replaced by savanna vegetation.
Farther south, in southern Bolivia, northern
Paraguay, and southern Brazil, grassland
take over
NA NA High probability of intensified dry seasons in
E. Amazonia and a medium probability that
the rainfall regime will shift sufficiently to a
climate state where seasonal forest is more
viable than rainforest
NA NA Without CO2 fertilization effect: substantial shifts
to drier and less productive biomes; CO2
fertilization effect at maximum efficiency: little
change in
vegetation; If dry season is longer than four
months: Amazonian forests are replaced by
drier and less productive biomes like seasonal
forest or savanna, even with CO2 fertilization effect

point, since crossing this limit (i.e. deforestation larger
than 40% of forest area) means that the regional climate
changes induced by the large-scale deforestation itself
could prevent the re-establishment of the forest, mostly
over eastern and southeastern Amazon [10]. That
threshold can be significantly modified because of the
combined effects of land cover change (clear-cutting, and
forest degradation and fragmentation) and increased for-
est fire occurrence [62,63], but a quantitative estimate for
the decreased resilience because of increased forest fire is
not available as yet. On the other hand, the impact of
global warming on the forest stability indicates that a
tipping point may take place for temperature increases of
3–48C in the region, conducive to higher risk of forest
dieback or savannization over large portions of the Ama-
zon Basin [4,11,67–69], and, similarly to the case of
sensitivity to deforestation, the area mostly impacted is
the eastern–southeastern Amazon. Forest fires might
function as positive feedback in response to the effect
of higher temperatures on biomass flammability
[14,15,62,63]. Emissions of GHG by fires, forest
decay, and soil carbon loss are yet another positive feed-
back to global warming [68].
Forest resilience can be increased if CO2 fertilization
effect is proven to be taking place for tropical forests
[13] and that they can be expected to remain for most part
of this century or if climate change associated to global
warming leads to increases of rainfall mostly over E–SE
Amazon. Both factors can counter large-scale land cover
change, temperature increase, and forest fires. Even
admitting such possibility, it is likely that the negative
drivers would overcome any positive driver during the
22nd century as large increases of temperature and rain-
fall seasonality [13], coupled to increased frequency of
forest fires [62,63] may determine the ultimate fate of the
Amazon forest. Western Amazon seems to be the region
most resilient to human drivers of change because of large
rainfall totals (more than 3 m of annual rainfall), which are
caused in part by the Andes Cordillera to the west [3] and
it is less sensitive to land use change [10] or to climate
change [11,13]. Additionally, it harbors significant bio-
diversity and has been less affected by land use change
[20].
Improvements of the quantitative understanding of the
likelihood of tipping points for the Amazon forest depend
on the use of advanced global Earth system models
capable of representing the dynamic interactions among
components of the climate system, including vegetation,
and feedback mechanisms such as carbon cycle and other
GHG, and forest fires. Such models must incorporate
dynamic models of land use and land cover change
driving deforestation, forest degradation and fragmenta-
tion, and vegetation fires. In addition to more realistic
Earth system models, a novel, combined satellite-based
and in situ vegetation observational system must be put in
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Amazon tipping points Nobre and Borma 33
place for early detection of ecological changes that could
become irreversible in the future.
References and recommended reading
Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review,
have been highlighted as:
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 perspectives from climate, ecosystem and social sciences.
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The paper introduces a multidisciplinary analysis of the challenges of the
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respective threats to the local and global climate stability.
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 Cardoso M: Regional climate change over eastern Amazonia
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Using simulated land cover maps from a business-as-usual scenario of
future deforestation in which rainforest was gradually replaced by
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original forest cover) for both classes of land use conversions.
11. Salazar LF, Nobre CA, Oyama MD: Climate change
 consequences on the biome distribution in tropical South
America. Geophys Res Lett 2007, 34:L09708.
The consequences of projected climate change on biome distribution in
South America are analyzed through a potential vegetation model forced
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