A new study carried out by Julián Tijerín-Triviño (Universidad de Alcala) during a visit with Dr Emily Lines (Department of Geography and CRI) has found that climate change is threatening the ability of European forests to sequester carbon.
Using forest survey data from the 1990s to 2020 from >13,900 plots in Mediterranean, temperate and boreal regions, the study found both that climate change has negatively influenced forest productivity, and that intensifying climate change in recent years is worsening this impact. Negative effects of intensified recent climate change primarily came from heatwaves and droughts increasingly and negatively impacting productivity in most regions studied. These findings are further evidence that altered forest productivity due to climate change may hinder the carbon sink capacity of European forests.
Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.70011
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