Climate variability, extremes, and attribution of high-impact ecological events: challenges and ways forward

About the talk

Climate and weather extremes impact tree functioning directly and can further trigger forest disturbances, thus affecting forest functioning and dynamics over periods much longer than the extreme per-se. With increased frequency or intensity of extreme events projected in the coming decades, extreme events might cluster in periods shorter than recovery times, thereby amplifying impacts and potentially inducing degradation and mortality trajectories. Understanding the links between atmospheric variability controlling extreme event occurrence and downstream impacts on forests is, therefore, crucial to: (i) separate trends in disturbance/mortality events due to natural vs. anthropogenically forced climate variability, (ii) improve process understanding about the drivers of high-impact ecological events and (iii) increase the robustness of future projections of forest dynamics.