BG1.4

In recent years, the Amazon forest has experienced several major droughts (2010, 2015/16) and floods (2012, 2014, 2021). Extreme events represent a threat to the Amazons important functions, but these perturbations also provide valuable insights into the underlying mechanisms. Here we studied the most recent massive drought and flood events in detail, and quantified their severity and spatiotemporal extent relative to a multi-year baseline.

First, we describe the anomalous hydrological status of these events, by bringing together a large variety of data sets, including in-situ observations and reanalysis products for precipitation, discharge, vapor pressure deficit and soil moisture. During the strong El Niño conditions following the dry season of 2015, the precipitation fell below its climatological values. This was soon reflected in low discharge rates and soil moisture levels, persisting far into the year 2016 for some regions. In contrast, we find anomalously high precipitation over the northern Amazon during the first months of 2021, resulting in high discharge rates,  and  rising river levels that have led to massive floods in downstream regions.

Finally, we quantified the impact of the 2015/16 drought on vegetation using the inverse model CarbonTacker South America (CT-SAM) and remote sensing proxies for photosynthesis. To address the uncertainty in prior emission estimates, we have used a range of different biosphere models (SiBCASA, SiB4), including a biosphere model linked to a detailed hydrological model (PCR-GLOBWB). For the fire flux we used multiple data sets (GFAS, SiBCASA-GFED4), including a modified version based on CO inversions performed with the TM5-4DVAR system. We find that photosynthesis was reduced during the 2015 drought, especially in the drier, southern part of the Amazon. This was followed by a recovery in the first months of 2016, but during the subsequent dry season a secondary impact on photosynthesis was found. The inversely derived net CO₂ fluxes do not have the same high resolution as the satellite products, but when assessed over larger scales, a consistent drought signal is derived.

How to cite: Koren, G., Botía, S., Domingues, L. G., Florentie, L., Gatti, L. V., Gloor, M., Harrigan, S., Krol, M. C., Luijkx, I. T., Miller, J. B., Naus, S., and Peters, W.: Extreme droughts and floods in the Amazon forest, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11505, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11505, 2022.

Whilst the deforestation rate of the Brazilian Amazon has decreased drastically over the 2005-2015 period, thanks to an ambitious program to fight deforestation, since then, forest degradation resulting from logging and wildfires became the major source of aboveground biomass losses and the Brazilian Amazon turned into a net carbon source. This could be partially explained by a decoupling of fire occurrence and deforestation, historically one of the key drivers of the fire regime in the region. Moreover, since 2015, deforestation rates and associated fires are rising again, and new deforestation frontiers are opening in previously unaffected areas in the central and western Amazon.

Fires in the Brazilian Amazon are closely related to climate and agriculture: fires are used to transform forests into pastures or cropland, and subsequent burns are used to maintain grass productivity. When nearby rainforests are sufficiently dry, deforestation and agricultural fires escape and can cause large wildfires. Local communities’ fire management practices impact greatly the likelihood of these escaping fires, but also bear a cost. High mortality rates after even low-intensity fires lead to fuel accumulation and canopy damage, increasing the vulnerability of forests to subsequent burnings. Coupled with a regional reduction of precipitations due to climate change and deforestation, the Amazon forest could be threatened by a cycle of massive dieback and increased fire activity. Thus, it is crucial to understand the drivers of different types of fires in the region and how to prevent them. Of particular interest is the role played by the policies deployed after 2004 to reduce deforestation rates in the region and their recent weakening.

Building on previously published literature on the drivers of fire regimes and deforestation in the region, data were collected on potential drivers of fire regimes related to climate, agricultural expansion, ecosystem integrity, infrastructure, populations, environmental policies and land conflict. MODIS Active-Fire dataset was used as a response variable, and also classified into deforestation fires, agricultural fires and forest fires thanks to deforestation and land use data in a second step of the study. A spatiotemporal modelling approach, relying on the Log Gaussian Cox process and R-INLA package, has been adopted to assess the relative influence of different drivers of fire regimes in the Brazilian Amazon for the 2006-2020 period. Preliminary results on the drivers of fire regime in the state of Para for the last four years show a powerful influence of drivers related to agricultural expansion (especially ranching), integrity of the forest cover, presence of rural settlements and environmental policies. Different protection regimes have varying influences on the fire regime, with sustainable use areas being the less efficient. Law enforcement efforts seem to have an inhibitory effect on fire occurrence and protected area downgrading, downsizing and degazettement favour them.

How to cite: Valette, M., Mills, M., Woods, J., Kountouris, Y., and Singh, M.: Assessing social and ecological drivers of fire regimes in the Brazilian Amazon in the context of changing forest governance, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12016, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12016, 2022.

The tropical rainforest is the largest source of VOCs to the global atmosphere ^[1], where they are oxidized primarily by the hydroxyl radical (OH) ^[2]. In-situ measurements of OH are rare, especially from tropical forests, but indirect OH estimates can be made using VOC concentrations measured from aircraft or towers. For this it is necessary to measure the vertical change in concentration of a specific VOC with a known OH rate coefficient, within a known reaction time. In this study volatile organic compounds (VOC) were measured on the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO) from 3 heights (80, 150 and 325 m) above the Amazon rainforest with a PTR-TOF-MS 4000 (IONICON Analytik GmbH). Typically to estimate OH, the convective timescale of the boundary layer is taken as the approximate reaction time. However, here we have developed a new method to determine the vertical transport based on the dynamic time warping technique. Median averaged transport times from 80 m to 325 m ranged from 105 to 15 minutes with decreasing values throughout the day from 06:00 to 15:00 as thermal and shear driven convection increases. We apply this method to determine effective OH concentrations between 80-325 m using isoprene and its oxidation products (methyl vinyl ketone, methacrolein and ISOPOOH) and compare these empirically derived values to values from the large-eddy simulation DALES ^[3]. The timescales of turbulent mixing and OH chemistry are similar, so both govern the vertical change in concentration.

^[1] Guenther, Alex. “Biological and Chemical Diversity of Biogenic Volatile Organic Emissions into the Atmosphere.” ISRN Atmospheric Sciences 2013 (2013): 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/786290.

^[2] Lelieveld, Jos, Sergey Gromov, Andrea Pozzer, and Domenico Taraborrelli. “Global Tropospheric Hydroxyl Distribution, Budget and Reactivity.” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 16, no. 19 (2016): 12477–93. https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-16-12477-2016.

^[3] Vilà-Guerau de Arellano, J., X. Wang, X. Pedruzo-Bagazgoitia, M. Sikma, A. Agustí-Panareda, S. Boussetta, G. Balsamo, et al. “Interactions Between the Amazonian Rainforest and Cumuli Clouds: A Large-Eddy Simulation, High-Resolution ECMWF, and Observational Intercomparison Study.” Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 12, no. 7 (2020): 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019MS001828.

How to cite: Ringsdorf, A., Edtbauer, A., Vila-Guerau de Arellano, J., Williams, J., and Lelieveld, J.: Determination of OH radical concentrations between 80-325 m over the Amazon rainforest using BVOC measurements, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-3731, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-3731, 2022.

This study combines ground-based gas phase, particle, and rainfall measurements at the ATTO site to study the impact of rainfall events on greenhouse and reactive gas concentrations and discuss how this process is relevant for producing new particles. Measurements of CO2, CH4, CO, O3, NO, and NO2 concentrations were collected from the surface to 79m using a tower at the ATTO site in the central Amazon forest northeast of Manaus, Brazil. Particle size distribution was measured by an SMPS and rainfall by a rain gauge at the top of the tower. Data collection started in 2012, and this analysis covered the period up to 2020. The 30-minute interval dataset was used to study how convective events modify the concentration of these gases. During the rainfall events, CO2, CO, and CH4 concentrations decrease, though CH4 varies less with height than CO and CO2. The daily cycle of NO2 presents an interesting characteristic showing distinct daily evolution for the concentration in the upper and lower levels. The decrease in NO2 concentration in the upper level and the increase near the surface in the afternoon, which is the typical time of rainfall events, indicate that a specific process occurs near the surface. With the joint analysis of gas-phase observations with ultrafine particles and rainfall data, it was possible to evaluate the interesting physical-chemical processes occurring during the rainfall events that might be important for particles nucleation. The time of rainfall events was defined as the first-time rain rate reaching 3 mm/hours, a typical value of the beginning of convective rainfall events. Interestingly, during rainfall events, there is a significant injection of O3 above and inside the canopy, and at this moment, its concentrations can increase by 300%. At the same time, NO decreases, and NO2 increases its concentration, suggesting a reaction between NO and O3 forming NO2. The concentration of NO2 follows the increase in particle concentration smaller than 20nm. This result opens new perspectives on the role of new particle formation related to rain and vertical mixing in the Amazon.

How to cite: Machado, L. A. T., Pöhlker, C., Harder, H., Andreae, M. O., Artaxo, P., Botia, S., Cheng, Y., Franco, M. A., Kremper, L., Komiya, S., Lavric, J., Leliveld, J., Hang, S., Quesada, C. A., Pöhlker, M., Trumbore, S., Walter, D., Williams, J., Wolff, S., and Pöschl, U.: Amazonas Rainfall Modifying Gas Concentration and Forming Nucleation Particles Near the Surface, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-8810, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-8810, 2022.

Soils of tropical forests generally have low fertility, therefore nutrient cycling has great importance in these ecosystem functions, once these soil elements are essential for vegetative tissue and plant metabolic processes. Understanding and quantifying the processes that involve nutrient acquisition, storage, and output in plants, and their relationship with forest productivity and biomass, is essential to characterize the ecosystem nutrient dynamics and understand how global environmental changes, such as the increase in CO2 can affect forest processes. Therefore, we investigated the nutrient dynamics of a terra firme forest in Central Amazonia, near Manaus, Brazil through the quantification of stocks, flows, and nutrient use efficiency in different compartments to estimate forest nutritional balance. We quantified the biomass stocks in the forest compartments – fine root, leaves, litterfall and stems – and their macro (N, P, Ca, Mg e K) and micronutrients (Fe, Mn e Zn) content. We estimated the nutrient fluxes through productivity rates, the nutrient stocks, and the nutrient efficiency, the inverse of nutrients concentration. Most of this information was available from the AmazonFACE (Free-Air CO2 Enrichment) baseline data. The study area has 8 permanent plots monitored since 2015 with periodic field collections and monitoring. We hypothesized that the macronutrient that cycles more efficiently in the ecosystem will potentially be the most limiting element to forest net primary productivity, adding to a better understanding of nutrient allocation and cycling, and greater accuracy in predictions from global vegetation dynamics models. The total forest biomass (above and belowground) in our study site was 200.85±0.52 Mg C ha-1 and the productivity 9.79±0.22 Mg C ha year-1. These results are higher than previous studies reported in the amazon forest. Ecosystem nutrient flow was greater in leaves > litter standing crop > fine roots > stems. On the other hand, ecosystem nutrient stocks were greater in stems > leaves > fine root > litter standing crop.  Our preliminary results show that phosphorus stock and flow are lower than other macronutrients, being, therefore, cycled more efficiently than other elements studied here. This suggests that phosphorus is potentially the macronutrient that most limits net primary productivity. For nitrogen, we observe a low-efficiency use, which was expected since this element is abundant in Central Amazon soils;  for potassium an intermediate efficient use, so the order of stocks and flows is N > K > P. For micronutrients nutrient efficiency use was as follows: zinc > magnesium > iron. These results suggest that phosphorus could be considered the most limiting macro nutrient to forest net primary productivity while zinc availability could also play a role. Our estimates of nutrient stocks and flows for a Central Amazon forest would improve our understand different nutrient dynamics and demands that impact biogeochemical cycles and functioning of these forests.

How to cite: Assis, P., Lugli, L. F., Aleixo, I., R. Bachega, L., Garcia, S., Santana, F., and Quesada, C. A.: Ecosystem nutrient budget in a Central Amazon forest: the role of nutrient stocks and flows in biogeochemical cycling, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13294, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13294, 2022.

Leaf phenology impacts carbon, nutrient, and hydrological cycles from local to global scales. In central Amazon rainforest, the timing of leaf flush and abscission promotes a seasonal change in leaf age composition of the upper canopy. It has been singled out as the most important driver of photosynthetic capacity (PC) seasonality. However, limitations concerning on two important issues must be raised: 1) canopy leaf age temporal variation has not been directly assessed and 2) this approach has an empirical assumption that canopy leaf area should be fully replaced after 12 months. The first issue implies PC to be obtained by flux-towers measurements to estimate leaf age composition of the upper canopy. So, it is not a reliable representation of age distribution of the upper canopy. The concerning about the second issue relies on that tropical rainforest trees are known to present different leaf phenological patterns (e.g. deciduousness and evergreenness) which are correlated to leaf lifespan (LL), like for a year or more. Besides, leaves presenting higher LL show differences on PC compared to those of short ones, both in their maximum PC and its decay rate while aging. That means if leaves from plants with different leaf phenological pattern have the same age (e.g. in months), they will differ on their PC. Therefore, there is a necessity to elucidate leaf phenological patterns and unravel temporal changes on leaf age composition of upper canopy and LL variability. From August 2016 to November 2019 at the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory (ATTO), tagged leaves were censused monthly on ten upper canopy branches per tree (n = 36 trees). Temporal variation of storage, flush and abscission of leaves were recorded. Chronological ages were only possible for leaves flushing during the study period. Similarly, LL was obtained from leaves when both flush and abscission date were observed throughout the monitoring period. Around 80% of the trees flushed new leaves massively during the dry season. Eight of them (22%) fell into brevi-deciduous category while twenty-eight (78%) into evergreenness. Canopy leaf quantity proved to be nonseasonal as expected. On the other hand, seasonal change in leaf age composition of the upper canopy was confirmed. Still, it sheds light on its complex and diverse stratification. In the last month of monitoring, leaf age ranged from 0 to 43 months with only half of the leaves being younger than a year. Thus, leaf flush and leaf abscission present a seasonality. However, at least almost half of them have a lifetime longer than a year. This result suggests that half of the leaves from upper canopy are being neglected by the models. The LL presented a bimodal distribution (n = 2552 leaves) with two peaks around one year and two years, respectively. This suggest there are annual and biannual leaf phenological patterns between upper canopy trees. However, individual trees still show a bimodal distribution of LL frequency. This implies LL should not be used as a leaf functional trait to define plant functional groups.

How to cite: Lembo Silveira de Assis, P. I., Martins, G. A., Sanches, I., Nelson, B. W., Sá, M., Kesselmeier, J., and Manzi, A. O.: How does leaf phenology define upper canopy functional structure in a central Amazon upland forest?, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-13341, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-13341, 2022.

The rapid rise in atmospheric CO₂ concentration over the past century is unprecedented. It has unambiguously influenced Earth’s climate system and terrestrial ecosystems. Plant responses to rising atmospheric CO₂ concentrations are thought to have induced an increase in biomass and thus, increased the carbon sink in forests worldwide. Rising CO₂ directly stimulates photosynthesis (the so-called CO₂-fertilization effect) and tends to reduce stomatal conductance, leading to enhanced water-use efficiency, which may provide an important buffering effect for plants during adverse climate conditions. For these reasons, current global climate simulations consistently predict that tropical forests will continue to sequester more carbon in aboveground biomass, while several lines of evidence point towards a decreasing carbon sink strength of the Amazon rainforest in the coming decades, potentially driven by nutrient limitation, droughts or other factors. Mechanistically modelling the effects of rising CO₂ in the Amazon rainforest are hindered by a lack of direct observations from ecosystem scale CO₂ experiments. To address these critical issues, we have been developing a free-air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) experiment in an old-growth, highly diverse, tropical forest in the Brazilian Amazon and we present our main hypotheses that underpin the AmazonFACE experiment.  We focus on possible effects of rising CO₂ on carbon uptake and allocation, phosphorus cycling, water-use and plant-herbivore interactions, and discuss relevant ecophysiological processes, which need to be implemented in dynamic vegetation models to estimate future changes of the Amazon carbon sink. We also report recent results from the open-top chamber experiments on understorey saplings under rising CO₂ and phosphorus fertilization, recently conducted at the AmazonFACE site. We give an overview over phosphorus uptake strategies and potential modelling approaches.

How to cite: Rammig, A. and Lapola, D. and the AmazonFACE team: AmazonFACE – Assessing the response of Amazon rainforest functioning to rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-9067, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9067, 2022.

Tropical forests play a key role in the flux of terrestrial carbon (C). However, recent studies show tropical forest are losing over the years the ability to sink C from the atmosphere, one of the best explanations for that is the climate change caused by humanity in the last centuries and accelerating slightly every year. One of the ways to understand the changes in C fluxes in forest ecosystems in the short, medium, and long term are the Earth system models (ESMs). Nevertheless, simulations demonstrate that ESMs are not able to represent the decline in C sink by tropical forests in recent decades. Experiments that fertilize the atmosphere with carbon dioxide (eCO₂) are essential to reduce uncertainties in future ESM projections about the possible effects of eCO₂ on the carbon cycle. Open top chamber (OTC) allow the exposure of understory vegetation to eCO₂ allowing the control and monitoring of the microenvironment in which they are inserted. Here, we describe the OTC system currently operating in the Amazon Free-Air CO₂ Enrichment research program (AmazonFACE) in a mature forest in Central Amazonia, the analysis period is from 01/01/2020 to 12/31/2020. Each OTC is 2.40 m in diameter by 3.00 m in height, in which the concentration of CO₂ ([CO₂]) is monitored minute-by-minute using infrared gas analyzers, allowing the spatial and temporal control of [CO₂]. The operation consists of keeping the [CO₂] in the treatment OTCs (i.e., with eCO₂) ≈ 200 µmol. mol^–1 above the [CO₂] of the control OTCs (i.e., without eCO₂) in the daytime (between 6:00 am - 6:00 pm). The [CO₂] measurements on the treatment and control OTCs show that the desired concentration was successfully delivered, +262.4 ± 25.5 µmol / mol (mean ± SD) of the desired setpoint, i.e., 31 % above setpoint target. The eCO₂ in the treatment OTCs worked 91% of the analyzed operational time, the remaining time was wasted with engineering failures (3%) and problems with the supply of CO₂ (6%). The system was able to maintain the [CO₂] above the setpoint, showing that the system configuration is capable of exposing understory vegetation even in a highly complex environment. The results demonstrate that the in-situ OTC system presented can be reproduced in different types of ecosystems, allowing better knowledge about metabolic processes that occur between atmosphere-plant-soil.

How to cite: Pereira, I., Takeshi, B., Guedes, A., Souza, C., Quesada, C., and Lapola, D.: An open-top chamber system for exposing Amazon understory vegetation to elevated atmospheric CO2, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2869, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2869, 2022.

The Amazon covers an extensive area of tropical rainforest that directly affects global water and Carbon cycles. The biomass stored in this forest is a result of the dynamic balance between rates of mass gain due to productivity, and losses due to respiration and mortality. In general, these forests concentrate about 70-80% of biomass in the aboveground part, and the regional variation of AGB (aboveground biomass) can be explained by the compositional, structural, climatic and by differences in soil propriety and fertility between East-West gradient in the Amazon basin. This gradient drives a large set of variations in tree growth and mortality, resulting in differences on the forest structure and dynamics. In this context, direct manipulation of nutrients in soils is a powerful tool to investigate which elements limit tree growth and forest productivity. While nitrogen (N) is accumulated along soil development and age, the availability of rock-derived phosphorus (P) and cations may limit the ecosystems' functioning, including the potential increase in the productivity in response to elevation on CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. To understand these patterns, a long-term, large-scale soil fertilization experiment in Amazonian forests (AFEX) was implemented in the Central Amazon. In 2017, 32 permanent plots were installed in areas of old-growth continuous forest belonging to the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (PDBFF), in a full factorial design, with four blocks chosen at random, where 8 plots (each with a size of 50x50 m) were installed with different fertilization treatments for each block. The treatments are: P, N, cations, Control (no fertilization), N+P, N+cations, P+cations and N+P+cations. To estimate the effects of soil fertilization on AGB, we calculated the difference between biomass before and after four years of fertilization (2017 to 2021), using allometric equations performed data from diameter about 5,000 individuals (DAB ≥ 10 cm) measured annually and wood density. We analyzed the data with two different approaches, at the community and at genus level, considering three most abundant genera: Eschweilera, Pouteria and Protium. At community level, our results showed only non-significant trends between AGB in plots where N, P and cations were added. At genus level, we observed that Eschweilera and Protium had a negative relationship to N and Pouteria had a positive trend.  Conversely, only Protium increased AGB with P addition.  Pouteria and Protium was negatively affected by cations, while Eschweilera showed no response. These results indicate that, although overall positive or negative trends in biomass increment appear at the community level, the highly diverse forest studied does not have a homogeneous response to nutrient addition, and that each taxonomic group could potentially be limited by different nutrients. In the long term, we expect that these patterns may change the forest structure, dynamics and composition and, consequently, the stocks of biomass, impacting the functionality of these forests. These results improve our understanding of the role of nutrients affecting forest biomass, and may reduce uncertainties in vegetation dynamics models and predictions on environmental changes.

How to cite: Brum, B., Quesada, C. A., Assis, R., Schietti, J., Aleixo, I., di Ponzio, R., Hartley, I., Andersen, K., Cunha, H. F., Lugli, L., Martins, N., Almeida, R., Pires, M., Pinheiro, N., Moraes, A. C., Camargo, J. L., Ribeiro, G., Takeshi, B., Siebert, L., and Andrade, F.: Effects of soil fertilization on aboveground biomass in an old-growth forest in Central Amazon, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-10939, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-10939, 2022.