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Once green, Europe's forests are now turning brown. In recent years, these forests have been changing color little by little due to climate change.
Once green, Europe's forests are now turning brown. In recent years, these forests have been changing color little by little due to climate change.
Faced with intense episodes of drought and megafires, Europe's forests are under threat. And this is reflected in their color, as demonstrated by research from a team of researchers based in Zurich, Switzerland. Their work traces the evolution of European forests from satellite images in the temperate and Mediterranean forest regions of the continent.
The study shows that, in the space of 20 years, vegetation has never been so extensively browned as in the summer of 2022, a period that broke many heat records in Europe. This impact reportedly affects 37% of temperate and Mediterranean forest regions. And this is anything but good news, since this color change may be a sign of forest dieback, which has "recently intensified and has become more extensive," says the research.
Intense droughts and fires are not the only likely causes of this browning. "This dieback is strongly influenced by meteorological variations of temperature and precipitation," the study states.
"The observation of the record-extensive [low greenness] event in the summer of 2022 underlines that understanding the forest–meteorology interaction is of particular relevance for forest dieback in a changing climate," the researchers conclude.
This is not a particularly encouraging prospect, especially since trees are not the only ecosystems on the planet that are under threat. Lakes, blue tits, and even some varieties of broccoli, are also facing a change in their color due to global warming.
