Satellite study shows most forests around the world are becoming less resilient to change

Bob Yirka is a research scientist at Phys.org.

A group of researchers from Italy, France and the U.S. have found that most forests around the world are becoming less resistant to environmental changes due to global warming. The group describes their study in a paper published in the journal Nature.

Scientists around the world are studying possible impacts of the warming planet. A number of studies show that cutting down the trees in rain forests and other forests to make way for crops is detrimental to the climate. Global warming could make it difficult for some forests to survive, but less work has been done to learn more about it. The researchers wondered if the changes might make forests less resistant to temporary challenges such as floods or pests. Years of satellite imagery was used to find out.

To learn more about the resilience of the world's forests, the researchers used a learning method to sift through huge amounts of satellite data. They defined resilience as the ability of a forest to bounce back after being disrupted. They note that when such efforts fail the vegetation changes to something else.

Over half of the world's forests show signs of being less resilient. Global warming seems to be improving resilience in some trees, such as those in the north. Increasing average heat and decreasing available water were found to be the biggest factors in reducing resilience.

More information: Giovanni Forzieri et al, Emerging signals of declining forest resilience under climate change, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04959-9 Journal information: Nature

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