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Abstract

Tropical rainforests are recognized as one of the terrestrialtipping elements which could have profound impacts on the global cli-mate, once their vegetation has transitioned into savanna or grasslandstates. While several studies investigated the savannization of, e.g., theAmazon rainforest, few studies considered the influence of fire. Fire isexpected to potentially shift the savanna-forest boundary and henceimpact the dynamical equilibrium between these two possible vegeta-tion states under changing climate. To investigate the climate-inducedhysteresis in pan-tropical forests and the impact of fire under future cli-mate conditions, we employed the Earth system model CM2Mc, whichis biophysically coupled to the fire-enabled state-of-the-art dynamicglobal vegetation model LPJmL. We conducted several simulation ex-periments where atmospheric CO2concentrations increased (impactphase) and decreased from the new state (recovery phase), each withand without enabling wildfires. We find a hysteresis of the biomassand vegetation cover in tropical forest systems, with a strong regionalheterogeneity. After biomass loss along increasing atmospheric CO2concentrations and accompanied mean surface temperature increase ofabout 4°C (impact phase), the system does not recover completely intoits original state on its return path, even though atmospheric CO2concentrations return to their original state. While not detecting large-scale tipping points, our results show a climate-induced hysteresis intropical forest and lagged responses in forest recovery after the climatehas returned to its original state. Wildfires slightly widen the climate-induced hysteresis in tropical forests and lead to a lagged response inforest recovery by ca. 30 years.