Assessing thermal comfort during summer: Open land vs. stand measurements

Forests play a crucial role in mitigating climate change, absorbing 31% of annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions while influencing local climate through biophysical processes such as albedo, evaporation, and canopy roughness. Globally, the impact of forest land on climate is dominated by carbon sequestration. As a result, carbon stocks are frequently given more attention in climate policies than the effects of biophysical processes. However on a local scale CO2 effects were previously found to be far outweighed by biophysical effects, which contribute to local climate stability by reducing extreme temperatures. To explore these effects, we analyzed temperature data from 2011–2024 at three ICP forest stands in Eastern Austria, dominated by oak, beech, and spruce, and compared it to open land data from the Austrian National Weather Service. Using common heat indicators such as the number of heat days and average duration of heat waves, alongside thermal comfort indices incorporating relative humidity, we quantified the effects of forest stands on local climate. Our findings emphasize the importance of stand-level measurements and highlight forests' role in mitigating heat stress, underscoring their potential as a public heat-combat strategy.