Europe's forest management did not mitigate climate warming

Naudts, Kim; Chen, Y.; McGrath, M.J.; Ryder, J.; Valade, A.; Otto, Juliane; Luyssaert, S.

doi:10.1126/science.aad7270

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Europe's forest management did not mitigate climate warming

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Naudts, Kim
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement–Institut Pierre Simon Laplace;
Emmy Noether Junior Research Group Forest Management in the Earth System, The Land in the Earth System, MPI for Meteorology, Max Planck Society;

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http://science.sciencemag.org/content/351/6273/597/suppl/DC1
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Citation

Naudts, K., Chen, Y., McGrath, M., Ryder, J., Valade, A., Otto, J., et al. (2016). Europe's forest management did not mitigate climate warming. Science, 351, 597-600. doi:10.1126/science.aad7270.

Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0029-7CF5-1

Abstract

Afforestation and forest management are considered to be key instruments in mitigating climate change. Here we show that since 1750, in spite of considerable afforestation, wood extraction has led to Europe’s forests accumulating a carbon debt of 3.1 petagrams of carbon. We found that afforestation is responsible for an increase of 0.12 watts per square meter in the radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere, whereas an increase of 0.12 kelvin in summertime atmospheric boundary layer temperature was mainly caused by species conversion. Thus, two and a half centuries of forest management in Europe have not cooled the climate. The political imperative to mitigate climate change through afforestation and forest management therefore risks failure, unless it is recognized that not all forestry contributes to climate change mitigation.