Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
BG3.29 | Adapting to uncertainty: Addressing Forest Risk in the Face of Climate Change
EDI
Adapting to uncertainty: Addressing Forest Risk in the Face of Climate Change
Convener: Hannah O'SullivanECSECS | Co-conveners: Samuli Junttila, Antti PolvivaaraECSECS, Yan ChengECSECS, Stephanie Horion
Global forests face a multitude of natural hazards brought on by climate change, from droughts and pests to storms and wildfires. The impact of these hazards has been devastating, with year 2023 being no exception, exemplifying the increasing risk of widespread tree mortality due to extreme weather, insect outbreaks, wildfire and wind throw. To better quantify and model the risk, there is an urgent need to improve our understanding of where, when, why, and what kind of trees die in the first place, i.e. through the complex interplay of tree mortality drivers as well as the role and impact of compounding events (e.g., extreme weather events, fire, pest). The implications of widespread tree death also have unknown consequences for global carbon budgets, since forests play an important role in carbon sequestration.

The purpose of this session is to bring researchers together who are interested in 1) identifying the spatial and temporal patterns of tree mortality, 2) disentangling the effect of multiple risk factors, 3) discussing the ecological and evolutionary attributes of forests that mitigate tree mortality risk and 4) developing early-warning systems for mortality events. We welcome conceptual, observational, experimental and modelling approaches to quantifying the risk of tree mortality in global forests. We are particularly interested in contributions from researchers using interdisciplinary approaches for mapping or predicting tree mortality.