The arrival of “Super El Niño” is a cause for concern for scientists who study the Amazon. The ever-increasing and high-intensity recurrence of these events is placing the planet's largest tropical forest under severe climate stress, leaving it unable to fully recover from the extreme phenomena of recent years.
Amazon faces new El Niño without recovering from effects of 2023-24 drought
The arrival of “Super El Niño” is a cause for concern for scientists who study the Amazon. The ever-increasing and high-intensity recurrence of these events is placing the planet's largest tropical forest under severe...
A study published in the journal PNAS highlighted by Folha estimates that around 53% of the intact areas of the Amazon affected by the drought observed in the last El Niño, between 2023 and 2024, are not expected to recover even after seven years of the extreme climate event. This is the maximum time it has taken the forest to recover from episodes of this type in the last 30 years.
The analysis was carried out based on the observation of satellite images from that period, paying attention to moisture and plant biomass data. According to the research, the 2023/24 drought caused a severe loss of moisture in the tree canopy, a drop in biomass above the average since 1992, in addition to a drastic reduction in water levels in the main Amazon rivers. Along with the drought, the forest fires observed during the last El Niño also contributed to making the forest even drier.
In 2025, the occurrence of La Niña allowed a large volume of rain in the Amazon, which recovered its water surface level prior to the droughts, according to data from MapBiomas. However, the increase in river levels does not mean that the forest has returned to previous standards of functionality, which also involve variables such as the level of evapotranspiration and the carbon exchange carried out by its vegetation. The recurrence of extreme events compromises exactly these long-term conditions for recovery, making the forest increasingly vulnerable to periods of drought.
“The tendency is for the forest to lose biomass over time, reducing its productivity, losing the ability to recycle water and maintain its original microclimatic characteristics”, explained Luiz Eduardo Oliveira e Cruz de Aragão, researcher at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).
Revista Amazônia, O Liberal and Onda Digital, among others, also addressed the study.
Source: ClimaInfo
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