Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality
Williams, A.P., C.D. Allen, A.K. Macalady, D. Griffin, C.A. Woodhouse, D.M. Meko, T.W. Swetnam, S.A. Rauscher, R. Seager, H.D. Grissino-Mayer, J.S. Dean, E.R. Cook, C. Gangodagamage, M. Cai, and N.G. McDowell, 2012: “Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality.” Nature Climate Change, doi: 10.1038/nclimate1693.
As the climate changes, drought may reduce tree productivity and survival across many forest ecosystems; however, the relative influence of specific climate parameters on forest decline is poorly understood. We derive a forest drought-stress index (FDSI) for the southwestern United States using a comprehensive tree-ring data set representing AD 1000–2007. The FDSI is approximately equally influenced by the warm-season vapour-pressure deficit (largely controlled by temperature) and cold-season precipitation, together explaining 82% of the FDSI variability. Correspondence between the FDSI and measures of forest productivity, mortality, bark-beetle outbreak and wildfire validate the FDSI as a holistic forest-vigour indicator. If the vapour-pressure deficit continues increasing as projected by climate models, the mean forest drought-stress by the 2050s will exceed that of the most severe droughts in the past 1,000 years. Collectively, the results foreshadow twenty-first-century changes in forest structures and compositions, with transition of forests in the southwestern United States, and perhaps water-limited forests globally, towards distributions unfamiliar to modern civilization.
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