Researchers measured three aspects of the risk that climate change poses to forests: carbon storage, biodiversity, and loss of forest due to disturbances like fire or drought.
The findings indicated that forests in some areas are subject to distinct and consistent risks.
In other areas, the risk profile is much less distinct because different methods that take into consideration different facets of climate risk produce different results.
At-risk forests are determined by a global analysis
Eelco Böhtlingk/Unsplash
In a study that was recently published in Science, William Anderegg, the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy's inaugural director at the University of Utah, and colleagues quantified the risk that climate change poses to forests in terms of three different factors, as per ScienceDaily.
Researchers from the United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal, and Sweden were included in Anderegg's team.
Assessing climate hazards to the world's woods, which cover all continents and climates, support incredible biodiversity, and store enormous amounts of carbon, was a difficult challenge for them.
The three components of risk are significant and frequently work in tandem.
According to Anderegg, they convey many facets of a forest's resiliency or vulnerability.
Carbon storage
Forests play a crucial role in protecting the earth from the impacts of rising atmospheric carbon dioxide by absorbing around a quarter of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere.
The team used the output from various vegetation and climate models to simulate how various plant and tree kinds respond to various climatic conditions.
Biodiversity
Surprisingly, the researchers discovered that the biome boundaries, such as the existing boundary between temperate and boreal woods, are where ecosystems are most in danger of transitioning from one life zone to another because of climate change.
Disturbance
The authors then examined the possibility of stand-replacing disturbances, or occurrences like drought, fire, or insect damage that may obliterate large tracts of forest.
According to Anderegg, forests store a significant quantity of carbon and sluggish climatic change.
Considering assessing the future of Earth's forests in such a rapidly changing climate, it's crucial to take into account each of these features and dimensions because they contain the vast majority of the planet's biodiversity and can be extremely vulnerable to disruptions such as severe fire or drought.
People from yogic or tribal traditions and those who live in rural areas have a reverent attitude toward forests because they consider them ancient, sacred, and enigmatic, as per You Matter.
Others base their arguments on scientific principles, acknowledging forests as exceptional biodiversity hotspots and the finest technology we have to combat climate change.
However, it's simple to overlook forests in the hectic and occasionally remote metropolitan life and underestimate their significance for maintaining the ecological balance of the planet and ensuring human long-term existence.
The quality of the air we breathe, 20% of which originates from the Amazonian rainforest, depends on them, which cover 30% of the planet's land surface.
Forests are essential for the regulation of a water cycle as well as the quality of the river waters that cities either directly or indirectly use.
As they absorb and store CO2 in their biomass, keeping it from being released into the atmosphere, they are also essential in the fight against climate change.
By reducing soil erosion and fortifying the soil with tree roots, forests reduce the effects of storms and floods.
The world's forests are home to 80% of its biodiversity.
