Holger Lange

Research Professor

(+47) 900 88 460
holger.lange@nibio.no

Place
Ås H8

Visiting address
Høgskoleveien 8, 1433 Ås

Abstract

Forests are a key plank of European policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change and to promote biodiversity. These policies are starting to become more nuanced with respect to the account of their impacts on carbon storage, considering the effect of long-lived wood products and value of conserving old-growth forests, along with indirect land-use change impacts. However, a CO2-focused perspective means that many processes are still omitted for the quantification of the true extent of climate effects. Emissions of the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane, short-lived climate forcers and effects from albedo changes and heat fluxes are also relevant. These processes are interconnected and influence the climate mitigation of forests in a complex way and need to be considered. The CLImate Mitigation and Bioeconomy pathways for sustainable FORESTry (CLIMB-FOREST) Horizon Europe project that runs until 2027 uses a holistic approach to estimate the climate impacts of various management alternatives. The foundation of CLIMB-FOREST is the use of European-wide empirical data, as well as an advanced coupled vegetation and earth-system modelling framework that includes biodiversity indicators and the interaction of forestry stakeholders in a global trade system. This framework is used to model management, forest tree species and climate on short- to long-term in Europe. We present first results of the climate effects and ecosystem functioning for a range of management alternatives in boreal, temperate, and Mediterranean forests. For example, introducing broadleaved trees in a coniferous forest promotes resilience and increased cooling from higher solar light scattering and latent heat flux of broadleaved trees. On the other hand, higher evapotranspiration might lead to an accelerated soil moisture depletion and reduced monoterpene emissions. The latter would have a warming effect because terpenes produce atmospheric particles, which are effective cooling agents through their involvement in cloud formation. Consequently, understanding these complex climate effects is key for appropriate climate-smart-forestry policies and approaches. The main outcomes and impacts of CLIMB-FOREST are to suggest alternative pathways for the forest sector to mitigate climate change in entire Europe, create attitude change in the policymaking process and influence foresters to adopt to new forest management strategies.

Abstract

Hurdal (NO-Hur) is a recently labelled ICOS class 2 station in Southeast Norway. It represents a typical southern boreal forest of medium productivity, dominated by old Norway spruce (average tree height: 25 m, ages: up to 100 years) with some pine and broadleaved trees. The eddy covariance technique is used to measure CO2 fluxes on a 42 m tower since 2021 . The measurements have an average footprint area of approximately 63 ha. In 2023, the region experienced an unusual dry spring and then an extraordinary flood in August. Both events showed significant impact on the Net Ecosystem Exchange (NEE) and heat fluxes. The station is also equipped with automatic dendrometers and sap flow devices on the dominant spruce trees, allowing us to investigate the impact of these events at the individual tree scale. We will present tree growth and transpiration flux at different temporal scales (from sub-daily to seasonal), and relate these single tree observations with environmental variables, ecosystem-level NEE and evapotranspiration using phase synchronization analysis. These observational data will yield insights into carbon and water processes of a boreal forest at different scales in response to multiple disturbances.