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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Persistent impacts of the 2018 drought on forest disturbance regimes in Europe
Contributor:
Senf, Cornelius;
Seidl, Rupert
Published:
Copernicus GmbH, 2021
Published in:
Biogeosciences, 18 (2021) 18, Seite 5223-5230
Language:
English
DOI:
10.5194/bg-18-5223-2021
ISSN:
1726-4189
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
Abstract. Europe was affected by an extreme drought in 2018,compounding with an extensive heat wave in the same and subsequent years.Here we provide a first assessment of the impacts this compounding event hadon forest disturbance regimes in Europe. We find that the 2018 droughtcaused unprecedented levels of forest disturbance across large parts ofEurope, persisting up to 2 years post-drought. The 2018 drought pushedforest disturbance regimes in Europe to the edge of their past range ofvariation, especially in central and eastern Europe. Increased levels offorest disturbance were associated with low soil water availability in 2018and were further modulated by high vapor pressure deficit from 2018 to 2020.We also document the emergence of novel spatiotemporal disturbance patternsfollowing the 2018 drought (i.e., more and larger disturbances, occurringwith higher spatiotemporal autocorrelation) that will have long-lastingimpacts on forest structure and raise concerns about a potential loss offorest resilience. We conclude that the 2018 drought had unprecedentedimpacts on forest disturbance regimes in Europe, highlighting the urgentneed to adapt Europe's forests to a hotter and drier future with moredisturbance.