Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century
Authors/Creators
- Grünig, Marc
- Rammer, Werner
- Senf, Cornelius
- Albrich, Katharina
- André, Frédéric
- Augustynczik, Andrey L.D.
- Baumann, Martin
- Bohn, Friedrich J.
- Bouwman, Meike
- Bugmann, Harald
- Collalti, Alessio
- Cristal, Irina
- Dalmonech, Daniela
- De Coligny, Francois
- Dobor, Laura
- Dollinger, Christina
- Espelta, Josep Maria
- Forrester, David I.
- Garcia-Gonzalo, Jordi
- González-Olabarria, José Ramon
- Hiltner, Ulrike
- Hlasny, Tomáš
- Honkaniemi, Juha
- Huber, Nica
- Jonard, Mathieu
- Jönsson, Anna Maria
- Kunstler, Georges
- Lagergren, Fredrik
- Lindner, Marcus
- Mina, Marco
- Moos, Christine
- Morin, Xavier
- Muys, Bart
- Nabuurs, Gert-Jan
- Nieberg, Mats
- Patacca, Marco
- Peltoniemi, Mikko
- Reyer, Christopher P.O.
- Scheelhaas, Mart-Jan
- Storms, Ilié
- Thom, Dominik
- Toigo, Maude
- Seidl, Rupert
Description
This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science Vol 391, Issue 6789 on March 5, 2026; DOI: 10.1126/science.adx6329. Direct Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adx6329.
Abstract: Wildfires, insect outbreaks and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulate future forest disturbance regimes at 100m resolution across Europe, using a deep learning-based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed area more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe’s forest demography. Because of their profound implications for forest carbon storage and the habitat value of forest ecosystems, disturbances should be a priority of forest policy and management.
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Additional details
Funding
- European Commission
- RESONATE - Resilient forest value chains – enhancing resilience through natural and socio-economic responses 101000574
- European Commission
- FORWARD - Causes and consequences of forest reorganization: Towards understanding forest change 101001905
- European Commission
- ForestPaths - Co-designing Holistic Forest-based Policy Pathways for Climate Change Mitigation 101056755