Amazon forests have experienced frequent and severe droughts in the past two decades. However, little is known about the large-scale legacy of droughts on carbon stocks and dynamics of forests. Using systematic sampling of forest structure measured by LiDAR waveforms from 2003 to 2008, here we show a significant loss of carbon over the entire Amazon basin at a rate of 0.3 ± 0.2 (95% CI) PgC yr−1 after the 2005 mega-drought, which continued persistently over the next 3 years (2005–2008). The changes in forest structure, captured by average LiDAR forest height and converted to above ground biomass carbon density, show an average loss of 2.35 ± 1.80 MgC ha−1 a year after (2006) in the epicenter of the drought. With more frequent droughts expected in future, forests of Amazon may lose their role as a robust sink of carbon, leading to a significant positive climate feedback and exacerbating warming trends.The research was partially supported by NASA Terrestrial Ecology grant at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and partial funding to the UCLA Institute of Environment and Sustainability from previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Science Foundation grants. The authors thank NSIDC, BYU, USGS, and NASA Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC) for making their data available. (NASA Terrestrial Ecology grant at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology)Published versio
