WASHINGTON POST • March 7, 2022
Yet satellite images taken over the past several decades reveal that more than 75 percent of the Amazon rainforest is losing resilience, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. The vegetation is drier and takes longer to regenerate after a disturbance. Even the most densely forested tracts struggle to bounce back. This widespread weakness offers an early warning sign that the Amazon is nearing its “tipping point,” the study’s authors say. The ecosystem could suffer sudden and irreversible dieback. More than half of the rainforest could be converted into savanna in a matter of decades – a transition that would imperil biodiversity, shift regional weather patterns and dramatically accelerate climate change.