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Tropical South America vegetation cover projections for the end of the century differ considerably depending on climate scenario and also on how physiological processes are considered in vegetation models. In this paper we use a potential vegetation model (CPTEC‐PVM2) to analyze biome distribution in tropical South America under a range of climate projections and a range of estimates about the effects of increased atmospheric CO 2 . We show that if the CO 2 “fertilization effect” indeed takes place and is maintained in the long term in tropical forests, then it will avoid biome shifts in Amazonia in most of the climate scenarios, even if the effect of CO 2 fertilization is halved. However, if CO 2 fertilization does not play any important role on tropical forests in the future or if dry season is longer than 4 months (projected by 2/14 GCMs), then there is replacement of large portions of Amazonia by tropical savanna.
Lapola et al. (2009) studied this question.