Conversion from coniferous to broadleaved trees can make European forests more climate-effective
The climate effectiveness of forestation in Europe is debated, as it may provide more warming via solar energy absorption than evaporative cooling. Since forests play an important role in European climate policy, it is necessary to explore potential solutions to this issue in a warmer world. Here, based on experiments conducted with a regional climate model under several forest change scenarios, we find that conversion from coniferous to broadleaved trees in currently forested areas can provide cooling for summer hot extremes (e.g., reducing the monthly mean daily maximum temperature in July over Continental Europe by 0.6 °C). The conversion can also mitigate the undesired warming impacts of forestation with present-day forest composition in most of Europe, e.g., reversing effects on the monthly mean daily maximum temperature in July over Continental Europe from +0.3 °C to -0.7 °C. This study highlights the importance of considering tree species in European forest policy development and suggests that the Northern and Central regions should be prioritised for forestation over the Western and Southern parts.
Authors
- Martin Wild (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3619-7568)
- Yi Yao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2212-2394)
- Sonia Isabelle Seneviratne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9528-2917)
- Peter Havlík (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5551-5085)
- Alessio Collalti (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4980-8487)
- Mathias Hauser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0057-4878)
- Verena C. Griess (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3856-3736)
- Meri Räty (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9361-4885)
- Petra Sieber (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2626-9502)
- Julia Pongratz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0372-3960)
- Jonas Schwaab (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4625-3882)
- Steven De Hertog (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5733-4632)
- Felix Jäger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6986-0701)
- Michael Windisch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3085-9265)
- Andrey Lessa Derci Augustynczik (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5513-5496)
- Fulvio Di Fulvio (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7317-6360)
- Jun Ge (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8876-1650)
- Fulden Batıbeniz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1751-3385)
Institutions
- Leibniz University Hannover (DE)
- University of Bern (CH)
- Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research (CH)
- International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (AT)
- Ghent University (BE)
- ETH Zurich (CH)
- Institute for Biomedical Engineering (CH)
- Istituto per il Sistema Produzione Animale in Ambiente Mediterraneo (IT)
- Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (AU)
- Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (DE)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Nanjing University (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-10-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-64580-y
- Citations
- 5
- Primary Topic
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.53
Funders
- Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
- Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
- HORIZON EUROPE Framework Programme