Causal pathway from Amoc to Southern Amazon rainforest indicates stabilising interaction between two climate tipping elements
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15550319 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Annika Högner (0000-0002-4178-9664, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, corresponding author), Giorgia Di Capua (0000-0002-7302-6522, Leibniz Association), Jonathan F Donges (0000-0001-5233-7703, Stockholm Resilience Centre), Reik V Donner (0000-0001-7023-6375, Leibniz Association), Georg Feulner (0000-0001-9215-5517, Leibniz Association), Nico Wunderling (0000-0002-3566-323X, Goethe University Frankfurt) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 7 |
| Pages | 074026-074026 |
| Publication date | 2025-05-21 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/addb62 |
| OpenAlex | W4410578935 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 71 |
Declines in resilience have been observed in several climate tipping elements over the past decades, including the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and the Amazon rainforest (AR). Large-scale nonlinear and possibly irreversible changes in system state, such as AMOC weakening or rainforest-savanna transitions in the Amazon basin, would have severe impacts on ecosystems and human societies worldwide. In order to improve future tipping risk assessments, understanding interactions between tipping elements is crucial. The AMOC is known to influence the Intertropical Convergence Zone, potentially altering precipitation patterns over the AR and affecting its stability. However, AMOC-AR interactions are currently not well understood. Here, we identify a previously unknown stabilising interaction pathway from the AMOC onto the Southern AR, applying an established causal discovery and inference approach to tipping element interactions for the first time. Analysing observational and reanalysis data from 1982–2022, we show that AMOC weakening leads to increased precipitation in the Southern AR during the critical dry season, in line with findings from recent Earth system model experiments. Specifically, we report a 4.8% increase of mean dry season precipitation in the Southern AR for every 1 Sv of AMOC weakening. This finding is consistent across multiple data sources and AMOC strength indices. We show that, predicated on recent estimates of AMOC weakening, this stabilising interaction has offset 17% of dry season precipitation decrease in the Southern AR since 1982. Our results demonstrate the potential of causal discovery methods for analysing tipping element interactions based on reanalysis and observational data. By improving the understanding of AMOC-AR interactions, we contribute toward better constraining the risk of potential climate tipping cascades under global warming
Amazon rainforest · Amazonian · Atmospheric sciences · Biology · Climate change · Climatology · Rainforest · Ecosystem dynamics and resilience · Environmental Science · Ecology · Geology
Amazonia as a carbon source linked to deforestation and climate change
Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points
Extended Reconstructed Sea Surface Temperature, Version 5 (ERSSTv5)
Critical transitions in the Amazon forest system
Causal inference in statistics
The ERA5 global reanalysis
| Highly cited | No |
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