Recent extreme drought events in the Amazon rainforest: assessment of different precipitation and evapotranspiration datasets and drought indicators

Abstract

Over the last decades, the Amazon rainforest has been hit by multiple severe drought events. Here, we assess the severity and spatial extent of the extreme drought years 2005, 2010 and 2015/16 in the Amazon region and their impacts on the regional carbon cycle. As an indicator of drought stress in the Amazon rainforest, we use the widely applied maximum cumulative water deficit (MCWD). Evaluating nine state-of-the-art precipitation datasets for the Amazon region, we find that the spatial extent of the drought in 2005 ranges from 2.2 to 3.0 (meanCombining double low line2.7) ×106km2 (37%-51% of the Amazon basin, meanCombining double low line45%), where MCWD indicates at least moderate drought conditions (relative MCWD anomaly