[MCN] Water sets limit to how tall trees can go

[Lance Olsen]

Ecology Letters December 2015
DOI: 10.1111/ele.12525

Water availability predicts forest canopy height at the global scale
Authors
Tamir Klein,Christophe Randin,Christian Körner

Abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12525/full

The tendency of trees to grow taller with 
increasing water availability is common 
knowledge. Yet a robust, universal relationship 
between the spatial distribution of water 
availability and forest canopy height (H) is 
lacking. Here, we created a global water 
availability map by calculating an annual budget 
as the difference between precipitation (P) and 
potential evapotranspiration (PET) at a 1-km 
spatial resolution, and in turn correlated it 
with a global H map of the same resolution. 
Across forested areas over the globe, Hmean 
increased with P-PET, roughly: Hmean 
(m) = 19.3 + 0.077*(P-PET). Maximum forest canopy 
height also increased gradually from ~ 5 to 
~ 50 m, saturating at ~ 45 m for P-PET > 500 mm. 
Forests were far from their maximum height 
potential in cold, boreal regions and in 
disturbed areas. The strong association between 
forest height and P-PET provides a useful tool 
when studying future forest dynamics under 
climate change, and in quantifying anthropogenic 
forest disturbance.
==========================================
" Š the proportion of the land surface in extreme 
drought is predicted to increase from 1% for the 
present day to 30% by the end of the twenty-first 
century." 

ELEANOR J. BURKE, et al.  "Modeling the Recent 
Evolution of Global Drought and Projections for 
the Twenty-First Century with the Hadley Centre 
Climate Model."
JOURNAL OF HYDROMETEOROLOGY OCTOBER 2006

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