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A climate risk analysis of Earth’s forests in the 21st century

W. Anderegg,Chao Wu,N. Acil,N. Carvalhais,T. Pugh,J. Sadler,R. Seidl

Published 2022 in Science

ABSTRACT

Earth’s forests harbor extensive biodiversity and are currently a major carbon sink. Forest conservation and restoration can help mitigate climate change; however, climate change could fundamentally imperil forests in many regions and undermine their ability to provide such mitigation. The extent of climate risks facing forests has not been synthesized globally nor have different approaches to quantifying forest climate risks been systematically compared. We combine outputs from multiple mechanistic and empirical approaches to modeling carbon, biodiversity, and disturbance risks to conduct a synthetic climate risk analysis for Earth’s forests in the 21st century. Despite large uncertainty in most regions we find that some forests are consistently at higher risk, including southern boreal forests and those in western North America and parts of the Amazon. Description Forests at risk Climate change is having negative effects on forests through extreme heat, drought, and disturbances. Predicting the impact of future climate change on forests is challenging because each approach relies on assumptions and incomplete data. Anderegg et al. compared results from three major modeling approaches that provide information on different facets of risk: a global mechanistic vegetation model, which estimates forest carbon loss; a climate envelope model, which provides information on species shifts; and empirical assessment of forest loss to disturbance using satellite imagery. These approaches provide complementary information but highlight the high overall risk to forests in the southern boreal, dry tropics, and central Europe. —BEL Climate change is predicted to change forest composition, decrease carbon, and increase disturbance, with some forests at high risk of all three.

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