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The early arrival of spring doesn’t boost annual tree growth

Analysis of when and how fast temperate deciduous trees in North America grow suggests that the earlier onset of the growing season induced by climate change does not result in extra carbon sequestration from wood production.
  1. Cyrille B. K. Rathgeber

    1. Cyrille B. K. Rathgeber is at the University of Lorraine, AgroParisTech, INRAE, SILVA, 54000 Nancy, France.

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  2. Patrick Fonti

    1. Patrick Fonti is at the Research Unit Forest Dynamics, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, 8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland.

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Earth’s forests have a major role in absorbing human-produced carbon dioxide and thus make a key contribution towards mitigating global warming. Writing in Nature, Dow et al.1 report the results of their investigation into whether the extended length of the growing season due to global warming affects the amount of carbon sequestered when wood grows.

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Nature 608, 473-474 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-02107-x

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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