Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage.

ABSTRACT: Disturbances from wind, bark beetles, and wildfires have increased in Europe's forests throughout the 20^th century ¹. Climatic changes were identified as a main driver behind this increase ², yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe's forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget ^3,4, and are hypothesized to contribute to the recently observed carbon sink saturation in Europe's forests ⁵. Here we show that forest disturbance damage in Europe has continued to increase in the first decade of the 21^st century. Based on an ensemble of climate change scenarios we find that damage from wind, bark beetles, and forest fires is likely

SUBMITTER: Seidl R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4340567 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature