Continuous frost causes a greater reduction in forest growth than isolated frost in the Northern Hemisphere.

ABSTRACT: Frost events can cause severe and often irreversible damage to leaves and canopies. The negative impacts of isolated frost events, defined as discontinuous days of extreme cold, on forests are well documented. However, a critical aspect of frost damage-its prolonged duration-is largely overlooked, even though freezing temperatures often persist for multiple consecutive days in natural environments. The impact of continuous frost events, characterized by consecutive days of extreme cold, on forest growth remains poorly understood. Using multiple remote-sensing data sources, herein we demonstrate that continuous frost events result in significantly greater declines in forest growth compared to isolated frost events across the Northern Hemisphere. Our frost-controlled experiments using seven

SUBMITTER: Yang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12852757 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature