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Peer-reviewedCC BYEarth's Future

The 2023–2024 El Niño as a Preview of Future Tropical Forest Climate

  • Johanna Van Passel1
  • Steven J. De Hertog1
  • Hans Verbeeck1
  • Philippe Ciais2
  • Peter Groenendijk3
  • Andrés Martínez de Velasco1
  • Peter van der Sleen4
  • Pieter A. Zuidema4
  • Félicien Meunier1
4 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Environment Q‐ForestLab Ghent University Ghent Belgium
  2. 2Laboratoire des sciences du climat et de l'environnement CEA CNRS UVSQ U Paris‐Saclay Gif sur Yvette France
  3. 3Department of Plant Biology Institute of Biology University of Campinas Campinas Brazil
  4. 4Forest Ecology & Forest Management Group Wageningen University Wageningen The Netherlands
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Abstract

Tropical forests are an important component of the global carbon cycle. Increasingly frequent droughts and heatwaves are undermining their resilience, with far‐reaching impacts on local livelihoods and on regional and global hydrological cycles. El Niño events, recurring climate patterns that lead to dry and hot conditions across multiple tropical regions, have always influenced these dynamics, but the 2023–2024 El Niño produced extreme droughts and heatwaves that exceeded the typical El Niño footprint. Here, we place the 2023–2024 El Niño in both past (2000–2024) and future (2025–2100) climatic contexts across pantropical forests. We assess its climatic magnitude using ensembles of reanalyses, satellite climate products, and Earth System Models. Climate anomalies over 2000–2024 show that three quarters of pantropical forests experienced, on average, 6 months of compound droughts and heatwaves during 2023–2024. Based on future climate projections, most tropical forest regions will reach high probabilities of experiencing 2023–2024‐like temperatures on an annual basis, while the probability of similar droughts is expected to increase mostly in Amazonian forests. These results indicate that the 2023–2024 El Niño may have presented a preview of future tropical forest conditions, which can only be prevented by rapid and drastic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{passel202620232024,
  title = {{The 2023–2024 El Niño as a Preview of Future Tropical Forest Climate}},
  author = {Johanna Van Passel and Steven J. De Hertog and Hans Verbeeck and Philippe Ciais and Peter Groenendijk and Andrés Martínez de Velasco and Peter van der Sleen and Pieter A. Zuidema and Félicien Meunier},
  journal = {Earth's Future},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1029/2026ef008071},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1029/2026ef008071},
  note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - The 2023–2024 El Niño as a Preview of Future Tropical Forest Climate
AU  - Johanna Van Passel
AU  - Steven J. De Hertog
AU  - Hans Verbeeck
AU  - Philippe Ciais
AU  - Peter Groenendijk
AU  - Andrés Martínez de Velasco
AU  - Peter van der Sleen
AU  - Pieter A. Zuidema
AU  - Félicien Meunier
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/28
JO  - Earth's Future
DO  - 10.1029/2026ef008071
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2026ef008071
AB  - Tropical forests are an important component of the global carbon cycle. Increasingly frequent droughts and heatwaves are undermining their resilience, with far‐reaching impacts on local livelihoods and on regional and global hydrological cycles. El Niño events, recurring climate patterns that lead to dry and hot conditions across multiple tropical regions, have always influenced these dynamics, but the 2023–2024 El Niño produced extreme droughts and heatwaves that exceeded the typical El Niño footprint. Here, we place the 2023–2024 El Niño in both past (2000–2024) and future (2025–2100) climatic contexts across pantropical forests. We assess its climatic magnitude using ensembles of reanalyses, satellite climate products, and Earth System Models. Climate anomalies over 2000–2024 show that three quarters of pantropical forests experienced, on average, 6 months of compound droughts and heatwaves during 2023–2024. Based on future climate projections, most tropical forest regions will reach high probabilities of experiencing 2023–2024‐like temperatures on an annual basis, while the probability of similar droughts is expected to increase mostly in Amazonian forests. These results indicate that the 2023–2024 El Niño may have presented a preview of future tropical forest conditions, which can only be prevented by rapid and drastic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.
SN  - 2328-4277
ER  -