Trew, Brittany T ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0649-828X, Edwards, David P
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8562-3853, Lees, Alexander C
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7603-9081, Klinges, David H, Early, Regan
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4108-5904, Svátek, Martin
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2328-4627, Plichta, Roman, Matula, Radim
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7460-0100, Okello, Joseph
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4462-3923, Niessner, Armin, Barthel, Matti, Six, Johan
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9336-4185, Maeda, Eduardo E
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7932-1824, Barlow, Jos
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-2594, do Nascimento, Rodrigo Oliveria
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4630-0095, Berenguer, Erika
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8157-8792, Ferreira, Joice, Sallo-Bravo, Jhonatan
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9007-4959 and Maclean, Ilya MD
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8030-9136
(2024)
Novel temperatures are already widespread beneath the world’s tropical forest canopies.
Nature Climate Change.
ISSN 1758-678X
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Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (10MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Tropical forest biodiversity is potentially at high risk from climate change, but most species reside within or below the canopy, where they are buffered from extreme temperatures. Here, by modelling the hourly below-canopy climate conditions of 300,000 tropical forest locations globally between 1990 and 2019, we show that recent small increases in below-canopy temperature (<1 °C) have led to highly novel temperature regimes across most of the tropics. This is the case even within contiguous forest, suggesting that tropical forests are sensitive to climate change. However, across the globe, some forest areas have experienced relatively non-novel temperature regimes and thus serve as important climate refugia that require urgent protection and restoration. This pantropical analysis of changes in below-canopy climatic conditions challenges the prevailing notion that tropical forest canopies reduce the severity of climate change impacts.
Impact and Reach
Statistics
Additional statistics for this dataset are available via IRStats2.