Climate Extremes

International researchers found a pattern of extreme climate conditions leading to forest dieback. To do this, the team had collected worldwide records of climate-related tree and forest dieback events over the past nearly five decades. The results, recently published in Nature Communications, reveal an ominous scenario for forests in the context of ongoing global warming. mehr

International forest experts analyzed major tree and forest dieback events that occurred globally in the last decades in response to climate extremes. To their surprise many forests were strongly affected that were not considered threatened based on current scientific understanding. The study, led by the MPI-BGC and published in Annual Reviews in Plant Biology, underscores also that further tree and forest dieback is likely to occur. mehr

Precisely how does a forest system and the individual plants within it react to extreme drought? Understanding the processes involved is crucial to making forests more resilient in the increasingly dry climate that will result from climate change, and also important for refining climate models. A research team led by Prof. Dr. Christiane Werner from the University of Freiburg has conducted the most extensive experiment to date into this subject using stable isotopes to trace flows of water and carbon through a forest. mehr

The influence of prolonged climatic changes on the terrestrial ecosystems of our planet is generally known; however, how and to what extent short-term climate extremes can have a definite impact on ecosystems is barely described. The variables involved are too numerous, and observations and measurements in the field are usually too short term. In a recent study, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC), Jena, and international partners were able to describe the consequences of extreme weather conditions using Spain as an example. mehr

Sebastian Sippel, former PhD student and now postdoc at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, is awarded the Bernd Rendel Prize 2017 for junior geoscientists. The award ceremony will take place on September 25, 2017 during the general meeting of the German Geological Society in Bremen. mehr