Hillslope roughness reveals forest sensitivity to extreme winds.

ABSTRACT: Windthrow, or the uprooting of trees by extreme wind gusts, is a natural forest disturbance that creates microhabitats, turns over soil, alters hydrology, and removes carbon from the above-ground carbon stock. Long recurrence intervals between extreme wind events, however, make direct observations of windthrow rare, challenging our understanding of this important disturbance process. To overcome this difficulty, we present an approach that uses the geomorphic record of hillslope topographic roughness as a proxy for the occurrence of windthrow. The approach produces a probability function of the number of annual windthrow events for a maximum wind speed, allowing us to explore how windthrow or tree strengths may change due to shifting wind climates. Slight changes to extreme wind speeds may

SUBMITTER: Doane TH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9934067 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature