Tropical land carbon cycle responses to 2015/16 El Niño as recorded by atmospheric greenhouse gas and remote sensing data

This warming is expected to continue but the effects on tropical vegetation are unknown. El Nino-related heat peaks may provide a test bed for a future hotter world.

Here we analyse tropical land carbon cycle responses to the 2015/16 El Nino heat and drought anomalies using an atmospheric transport inversion. Based on the global atmospheric CO2 and fossil fuel emission records, we find no obvious signs of anomalously large carbon release compared with earlier El Nino events, suggesting resilience of tropical vegetation. We find roughly equal net carbon release anomalies from Amazonia and tropical Africa, approximately 0.5 PgC each, and smaller carbon release anomalies from tropical East Asia and southern Africa.