RAPID: Observations of carbon, water, and vegetation dynamics during and after the 2015/2016 El Nino drought to test models of climate-change induced Amazon forest 'dieback'

科学家们担心亚马逊盆地的大森林可能容易受到气候变化的影响。在最坏的情况下，根据一些数值模型的预测，气候变化可能会导致降雨量的大幅减少，从而可能导致亚马逊森林的崩溃。为了让我们了解这些模型是否现实，对森林对现实世界干旱反应的观察是至关重要的。这个快速项目将测量森林上空空气中被森林捕获的二氧化碳的数量，以及在异常强烈的厄尔尼诺事件期间和之后树木生长和死亡的测量。厄尔尼诺事件现在正在造成亚马逊东部地区赤道沿线的干旱、高温和火灾。该项目将与许多巴西科学家和学生合作进行，他们也在这个地点工作。二氧化碳、潜热和显性水头的净生态系统交换将从巴西圣塔伦市附近塔帕霍·S森林的km67涡流通量塔进行。这个站点拥有亚马逊森林中最长的涡流通量和林木动态记录(从2001年开始)。这是开展这项工作的理想地点，因为它位于南美洲亚马逊地区对厄尔尼诺现象最敏感的地区之一。这些结果将提供有关森林崩溃模型背后的生态机制的迫切需要的信息，这些模型最近受到了如此多的关注。

Scientists are concerned that the great forests of the Amazon basin may be vulnerable to climate change. In the worst case, according to the predictions of some numerical models, climate change could cause large reductions in rainfall that could cause the collapse of Amazon forests. Critically needed to allow us to understand whether these models are realistic are observations of forest responses to real-world drought. This RAPID project will measure the amount of carbon dioxide from the air above the forest that is captured by the forest, along with measurements of tree growth and death during and after the unusually strong El Nino event that is now causing drought, high temperatures, and fires across the eastern region of the Amazon along the equator. The project will be carried out in collaboration with many Brazilian scientists and students who are also working at this location. Net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide, latent heat and sensible head will be made from the km67 eddy flux tower in the Tapajós forest near the city of Santarém, Brazil. This site has the longest combined eddy flux and forest tree dynamics record in an Amazon forest (starting in 2001). It is an ideal location for this work because it is in one of the most El Nino-sensitive areas of the South American Amazon. Results will provide much needed information about the ecological mechanisms that underlie the forest collapse models that have received so much recent attention.