Data from: Increasing forest disturbances in Europe and their impact on carbon storage

Disturbances from wind, bark beetles and wildfires have increased in Europe’s forests throughout the twentieth century. Climatic changes were identified as a key driver behind this increase, yet how the expected continuation of climate change will affect Europe’s forest disturbance regime remains unresolved. Increasing disturbances could strongly impact the forest carbon budget, and are suggested to contribute to the recently observed carbon sink saturation in Europe’s forests. Here we show that forest disturbance damage in Europe has continued to increase in the first decade of the twenty-first century. On the basis of an ensemble of climate change scenarios we find that damage from wind, bark beetles and forest fires is likely to increase further in coming decades, and estimate the rate of increase to be +0.91 × 106 m3 of timber per year until 2030. We show that this intensification can offset the effect of management strategies aiming to increase the forest carbon sink, and calculate the disturbance-related reduction of the carbon storage potential in Europe’s forests to be 503.4 Tg C in 2021–2030. Our results highlight the considerable carbon cycle feedbacks of changing disturbance regimes, and underline that future forest policy and management will require a stronger focus on disturbance risk and resilience.整个20世纪以来，欧洲森林中由强风、树皮甲虫与野火引发的森林扰动事件持续增多。气候变化被认定为该增长趋势的关键驱动因子，但未来气候变化的持续演进将如何影响欧洲森林扰动格局（forest disturbance regime），目前仍未明确。不断加剧的森林扰动或将对森林碳预算（carbon budget）造成强烈冲击，且被认为是近期欧洲森林碳汇（carbon sink）饱和现象的重要诱因。本研究显示，21世纪头十年，欧洲森林扰动损失仍在持续攀升。基于多气候情景集合（ensemble of climate change scenarios）的分析结果表明，未来数十年内，由强风、树皮甲虫及森林火灾引发的扰动损失或将进一步加剧，经估算，至2030年，该类损失的年均增长速率将达到+0.91×10⁶立方米木材。研究同时发现，此类扰动加剧效应可抵消旨在提升森林碳汇的经营策略所带来的增益，并经测算，2021至2030年间，欧洲森林因扰动导致的碳储存潜力（carbon storage potential）损失可达503.4太克碳（Tg C）。本研究结果凸显了扰动格局变化所带来的显著碳循环反馈（carbon cycle feedbacks）效应，同时强调，未来的森林政策与经营管理需进一步强化对扰动风险与恢复力（disturbance risk and resilience）的关注。