Environmental News Network - Rainforest Trees May Have Been Dying Faster Since the 1980S Because of Climate Change

Details: By University of Oxford; 18.May

Tropical trees in Australia’s rainforests have been dying at double the previous rate since the 1980s, seemingly because of climate impacts, according to the findings of a long-term international study published in Nature today.

Julie Swatson

Tropical trees in Australia’s rainforests have been dying at double the previous rate since the 1980s, seemingly because of climate impacts, according to the findings of a long-term international study published in Nature today. This research has found the death rates of tropical trees have doubled in the last 35 years, as global warming increases the drying power of the atmosphere.

Deterioration of such forests reduces biomass and carbon storage, making it increasingly difficult to keep global peak temperatures well below the target 2 °C, as required by the Paris Agreement. Today’s study, led by researchers from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center and Oxford University, and French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD), has used uniquely long data records from across Australia’s rainforests.

It finds average tree death rates in these forests have doubled over the past four decades. Researchers found trees are living around half as long, which is a pattern consistent across species and sites across the region. And the impacts can be seen as far back as the 1980s, according to the team.

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Rainforest Trees May Have Been Dying Faster Since the 1980S Because of Climate Change - Study