Amazon Tipping Point

A study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change finds that the Amazon rainforest may have already tipped from a carbon sink to a net source of greenhouse gasses.

Despite uncertainty in their responses to change, we conclude that current warming from non-CO2 agents (especially CH4 and N2O) in the Amazon Basin largely offsets—and most likely exceeds—the climate service provided by atmospheric CO2 uptake.

Update (May 5):  Matthew Rozsa reports on a study published in Nature Climate Change that finds the Brazilian Amazon became a net carbon emitter in the past decade largely due to forest degradation.

[T]he rain forest absorbed 13.9 metric tons of carbon dioxide between 2010 and 2019 — but released 16.6 billion metric tons during that same period. (To put that in context, human fossil fuel combustion is believed to produce around 35 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide [per year].)

Forest degradation happens when a forest's biological diversity and wealth is permanently diminished. [That has] contributed 73% of the "gross biomass loss" of the Amazon, compared to deforestation, which contributed 27% of that loss.