Figures for "California forest die-off linked to multi-year deep soil drying in 2012-2015 drought"

Data underlying main figures in "California forest die-off linked to
multi-year deep soil drying in 2012-2015 drought", published in
Nature-Geoscience, July 2019, ML Goulden and RC Bales.  Abstract
of paper: Widespread episodes of recent forest die-off have been tied to
the occurrence of anomalously warm droughts, though the underlying
mechanisms remain inadequately understood. California’s 2012-2015 drought,
with exceptionally low precipitation and warmth and widespread conifer
death, provides an opportunity to explore the chain of events leading to
forest die-off. Here we present the spatial and temporal patterns of
die-off and moisture deficit during California’s drought based on field
and remote-sensing observations.  We found that die-off was
closely tied to multi-year deep-rooting-zone drying, and that this
relationship provides a framework to diagnose and predict mortality.
Marked tree death in an intensively studied Sierra Nevada forest followed
a four-year moisture overdraft, with cumulative 2012-2015
evapotranspiration exceeding precipitation by ~1500 mm and subsurface
moisture exhaustion to 5-15 m depth. Observations across the entire Sierra
Nevada further linked tree death to deep drying, with die-off and moisture
overdraft covarying across latitude and elevation. Unusually dense
vegetation and warm temperatures accelerated southern Sierran
evapotranspiration in 2012-2015, intensifying overdraft and compounding
die-off by an estimated 55%. Climate change is expected to further amplify
evapotranspiration and moisture overdraft during drought, potentially
increasing Sierran tree death during drought by ~15 to 20% per oC.