Climate change and the High Latitude Northern Forests

Speaker: Paul Wennberg

Institution: Caltech

Abstract: The high latitude northern forests are warming at a rate more than triple that of the globe. These changes are reworking the forests. In regions with ample water, the forests are growing faster and the ecology is changing from scrub lands to evergreen forests to deciduous forests. As a result, a significant amount of the carbon dioxide emitted by the combustion of fossil fuels is being taken up by these forests. Will this ecosystem service continue to efficiently sequester additional carbon is the focus of this investigation using a combination of ground-based and space-based remote sensing.