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Title: Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests
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.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1714972
NSF-PAR ID:
10182667
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Science
Volume:
368
Issue:
6497
ISSN:
0036-8075
Page Range / eLocation ID:
eaaz7005
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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