This is Scott Amyx with today’s Climate Change Flash Briefing.
According to a recent study published in the journal Nature Communications, the researchers concluded that Hurricane María tripled tree breaks and doubled tree mortality relative to other major storms. The paper shows the potential future of forest ecosystems under climate change by analyzing the risk factors associated with tree species’ vulnerability to severe storms.
Category 4 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico with winds 155 miles per hour and up to 20 inches of rain falling within 24 hours. Maria is estimated to have destroyed or damaged 23 to 31 million trees across the island.
Species with high density wood were resistant to uprooting, hurricane-induced mortality, and were protected from breakage during Hugo but not María. Tree inventories and a wind exposure model showed that the differences in impacts is due to storm meteorology. The study warns that stronger hurricanes will decimate forests and accelerate climate change.
As the forests increasingly become victims of climate change, they could actually add more carbon to the atmosphere. After a storm, a forest loses all the carbon that was trapped inside trees. If a storm of Maria’s severity becomes the norm in the Caribbean, the forest will store less carbon because trees don’t have time to grow. The researchers’ model is showing that the net balance would be negative.
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