Data package for ‘Sensitivity of South American tropical forests to an extreme climate anomaly’.

The tropical forest carbon sink is known to be drought sensitive, but it is
unclear which forests are the most vulnerable to extreme events. Forests with
hotter and drier baseline conditions may be protected by prior adaptation, or
more vulnerable because they operate closer to physiological limits. Here we
report that forests in drier South American climates experienced the greatest
impacts of the 2015–2016 El Niño, indicating greater vulnerability to extreme
temperatures and drought. The long-term, ground-measured tree-by-tree
responses of 123 forest plots across tropical South America show that the
biomass carbon sink ceased during the event with carbon balance becoming
indistinguishable from zero (−0.02±0.37 Mg C ha−1 per year). However,
intact tropical South American forests overall were no more sensitive to the
extreme 2015–2016 El Niño than to previous less intense events, remaining a
key defence against climate change as long as they are protected.