"Tropical forests include the warmest and wettest of globally distributed biomes, but with additional warming, large areas of the tropics will be pushed to higher temperature states beyond current conditions. We may create a climate that has been absent on Earth for millions of years: the ‘hypertropics’."
Professor Jeff Chambers and colleagues have recently published a critical finding in the journal Nature, demonstrating how the world's most extensive tropical forest is facing a new and deadly climate regime. The article, titled Hot droughts in the Amazon provide a window to a future hypertropical climate, reveals that unprecedented hot drought conditions are creating a new climate regime—termed "hypertropics"—in the Amazon rainforest due to global warming. The escalating heat stress is dramatically increasing tree mortality by 55%, which in turn reduces the region's crucial capacity to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Watch Henrique Campos Ligeiro's beautiful video featuring Professor Jeff Chambers’ research