The climatic risk of Amazonian protected areas is driven by climate velocity until 2050

Results The comparison between the medians of forward and backward velocities across the Amazon showed a statistically significant difference (W = 1435894876, p-value < 0.001) between the backward velocity (10.9 km /year) and the forward (7.6 km/year). When comparing the veloci- ties inside and outside the PAs and ILs (Fig 1), the medians are significantly different in both forward (W = 715900341, p < 0.001) and backward (W = 300464189, p < 0.001). For forward velocities, the median of protected areas (9 km/year) was higher than that of non-protected areas (6 km/year). On the other hand, for backward velocities, the median of UAs (12.8 km/ year) was higher than that of PAs (9 km/year) and ILs (9 km/year). The comparison of the median climatic velocities between PAs and ILs (Fig 1C, 1D) showed a significant difference between the categories for both forward (W = 166466959, p-value < 0.001) and backward (W = 52366546, p-value < 0.001). At both velocities, the median of ILs Fig 1. Comparison of forward and backward velocities between protected and unprotected areas (A-B) and Indigenous Lands and Protected Areas (C-D). The dotted red line represents the median value of each of the velocities over the entire Amazon biome. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286457.g001 PLOS ONE Amazonian protected areas and climate velocity PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0286457 June 22, 2023 6 / 14