Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests

William R L Anderegg; Anna T Trugman; Grayson Badgley; Christa M Anderson; Ann Bartuska; Philippe Ciais; Danny Cullenward; Christopher B Field; Jeremy Freeman; Scott J Goetz; Jeffrey A Hicke; Deborah Huntzinger; Robert B Jackson; John Nickerson; Stephen Pacala; James T Randerson

doi:10.1126/science.aaz7005

Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests

Science. 2020 Jun 19;368(6497):eaaz7005. doi: 10.1126/science.aaz7005.

Authors

William R L Anderegg¹, Anna T Trugman², Grayson Badgley³, Christa M Anderson⁴, Ann Bartuska⁵, Philippe Ciais⁶, Danny Cullenward⁷, Christopher B Field⁸, Jeremy Freeman⁹, Scott J Goetz¹⁰, Jeffrey A Hicke¹¹, Deborah Huntzinger¹², Robert B Jackson^{8

13}, John Nickerson¹⁴, Stephen Pacala¹⁵, James T Randerson¹⁶

Affiliations

¹ School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84113, USA. [email protected].
² Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
³ School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84113, USA.
⁴ World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC 20037, USA.
⁵ Resources for the Future, Washington, DC 20036, USA.
⁶ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace CNRS CEA UVSQ Gif sur Yvette, 91191, France.
⁷ Stanford Law School, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁸ Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
⁹ CarbonPlan, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA.
¹⁰ School of Informatics and Computing, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
¹¹ Department of Geography, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA.
¹² School of Earth and Sustainability, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
¹³ Department of Earth System Science and Precourt Institute, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
¹⁴ Climate Action Reserve, Los Angeles, CA 90017, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.

PMID: 32554569
DOI: 10.1126/science.aaz7005

Abstract

Forests have considerable potential to help mitigate human-caused climate change and provide society with many cobenefits. However, climate-driven risks may fundamentally compromise forest carbon sinks in the 21st century. Here, we synthesize the current understanding of climate-driven risks to forest stability from fire, drought, biotic agents, and other disturbances. We review how efforts to use forests as natural climate solutions presently consider and could more fully embrace current scientific knowledge to account for these climate-driven risks. Recent advances in vegetation physiology, disturbance ecology, mechanistic vegetation modeling, large-scale ecological observation networks, and remote sensing are improving current estimates and forecasts of the risks to forest stability. A more holistic understanding and quantification of such risks will help policy-makers and other stakeholders effectively use forests as natural climate solutions.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

Carbon Sequestration
Climate Change*
Droughts
Fires
Forests*
Policy Making