New publication on evaluating climate change induced forest vulnerability
13 August 2024
Photo: University of Florida
The Research Unit for Sustainability and Climate Risks and the CLICCS C2 project Sustainable Land-Use Scenarios: Soil, Biodiversity, Water, Food and Energy Security collaborated in a recently published study contributing to the PhD thesis of Leam Martes, Doctoral Candidate at the Institute for Wood Science at the University of Hamburg.
Globally, forest ecosystems are endangered by climate change. Climate-stressed forests are causing considerable economic and ecological losses, and will negatively affect forest carbon sequestration potential. In order to assess tree species' mortality risk under different future climate scenarios, the authors of the study used climate envelope exceedance (CEE), and used data from the latest generation of climate models, including also the effects of climate extremes. Results suggest that in a 3-degree warmer world current forest species composition cannot be maintained. These more accurate assessments will aid in future adaptation and risk minimization measures, such as fire suppression and insect plaque management.
The article “Using climate envelopes and earth system model simulations for assessing climate change induced forest vulnerability” was published in the journal Scientific Reports.