Global field observations of tree die-off reveal hotter-drought fingerprint for Earth's forests
2022-04-05 | journal article
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Global field observations of tree die-off reveal hotter-drought fingerprint for Earth's forests
Hammond, W. M.; Williams, A. P.; Abatzoglou, J. T.; Adams, H. D.; Klein, T.; López, R. & Sáenz-Romero, C. et al. (2022)
Nature Communications, 13(1) art. 1761. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29289-2
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Details
- Authors
- Hammond, William M.; Williams, A. Park; Abatzoglou, John T.; Adams, Henry D.; Klein, Tamir; López, Rosana; Sáenz-Romero, Cuauhtémoc; Hartmann, Henrik ; Breshears, David D.; Allen, Craig D.
- Abstract
- Earth's forests face grave challenges in the Anthropocene, including hotter droughts increasingly associated with widespread forest die-off events. But despite the vital importance of forests to global ecosystem services, their fates in a warming world remain highly uncertain. Lacking is quantitative determination of commonality in climate anomalies associated with pulses of tree mortality-from published, field-documented mortality events-required for understanding the role of extreme climate events in overall global tree die-off patterns. Here we established a geo-referenced global database documenting climate-induced mortality events spanning all tree-supporting biomes and continents, from 154 peer-reviewed studies since 1970. Our analysis quantifies a global "hotter-drought fingerprint" from these tree-mortality sites-effectively a hotter and drier climate signal for tree mortality-across 675 locations encompassing 1,303 plots. Frequency of these observed mortality-year climate conditions strongly increases nonlinearly under projected warming. Our database also provides initial footing for further community-developed, quantitative, ground-based monitoring of global tree mortality.
- Issue Date
- 5-April-2022
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- eISSN
- 2041-1723
- Language
- English