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Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century

Grünig, Marc ; Rammer, Werner ; Senf, Cornelius ; Albrich, Katharina ; André, Frédéric ; Augustynczik, Andrey L.D. ; Baumann, Martin ; Bohn, Friedrich J. ; Bouwman, Meike and Bugmann, Harald , et al. (2026) In Science 391(6789).
Abstract

Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter resolution across Europe using a deep learning–based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed areas more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe’s forest demography. Because of their profound... (More)

Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter resolution across Europe using a deep learning–based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed areas more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe’s forest demography. Because of their profound implications for forest carbon storage and the habitat value of forest ecosystems, disturbances should be a priority of forest policy and management.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Science
volume
391
issue
6789
article number
1003
publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
external identifiers
  • pmid:41785360
  • scopus:105032342033
ISSN
0036-8075
DOI
10.1126/science.adx6329
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2026 the authors, some rights reserved.
id
f52aa610-4e9e-43ec-9712-6a8befcc2908
date added to LUP
2026-04-29 16:41:55
date last changed
2026-05-28 19:29:48
@article{f52aa610-4e9e-43ec-9712-6a8befcc2908,
  abstract     = {{<p>Wildfires, insect outbreaks, and storms cause large pulses of tree mortality. Climate change amplifies these forest disturbances, yet their future magnitude and extent remain uncertain. Here, we simulated future forest disturbance regimes at 100-meter resolution across Europe using a deep learning–based simulation framework. Our results show that forest disturbances will continue to increase throughout the 21st century, with disturbed areas more than doubling relative to the recent past under an unabated continuation of climate change. Wildfires are the main agent driving future disturbance change. Changing disturbances result in an increase in young forests, substantially altering Europe’s forest demography. Because of their profound implications for forest carbon storage and the habitat value of forest ecosystems, disturbances should be a priority of forest policy and management.</p>}},
  author       = {{Grünig, Marc and Rammer, Werner and Senf, Cornelius and Albrich, Katharina and André, Frédéric and Augustynczik, Andrey L.D. and Baumann, Martin and Bohn, Friedrich J. and Bouwman, Meike and Bugmann, Harald and Collalti, Alessio and Cristal, Irina and Dalmonech, Daniela and De Coligny, Francois and Dobor, Laura and Dollinger, Christina and Espelta, Josep Maria and Forrester, David I. and Garcia-Gonzalo, Jordi and González-Olabarria, José Ramón and Hiltner, Ulrike and Hlásny, Tomáš and Honkaniemi, Juha and Huber, Nica and Jonard, Mathieu and Jönsson, Anna Maria and Kunstler, Georges and Lagergren, Fredrik and Lindner, Marcus and Mina, Marco and Moos, Christine and Morin, Xavier and Muys, Bart and Nabuurs, Gert Jan and Nieberg, Mats and Patacca, Marco and Peltoniemi, Mikko and Reyer, Christopher P.O. and Schelhaas, Mart Jan and Storms, Ilié and Thom, Dominik and Toïgo, Maude and Seidl, Rupert}},
  issn         = {{0036-8075}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  number       = {{6789}},
  publisher    = {{American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)}},
  series       = {{Science}},
  title        = {{Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adx6329}},
  doi          = {{10.1126/science.adx6329}},
  volume       = {{391}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}