Climate change causing more severe wildfires, larger insect outbreaks in temperate forests

A warmer, drier climate is expected is increase the likelihood of larger-scale forest disturbances such as wildfires, insect outbreaks, disease and drought, according to a new study co-authored by a Portland State University professor. The researchers analysed 50 protected areas like national parks as well as their immediate surroundings, allowing them to compare disturbances inside protected areas that are more climate-related from those just outside that would also be impacted by human land use.

The study found that while many temperate forests are dominated by small-scale disturbance events driven largely by windstorms and cooler, wetter conditions -- there was also a strong link between high disturbance activity and warmer and drier-than-average climate conditions. Andrés Holz, a co-author and geography professor in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said this suggests that with a warming climate, disturbances are expected to become larger and more severe in some temperate forests including the western U.S.