[MCN] Persistent drought kills tall trees at twice the rate of smaller ones

[Lance Olsen]

 Eos 18 October 2019
The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall <https://eos.org/articles/the-bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall>
New research tracking 1.8 million trees found that tall trees died at more than twice the rate of smaller ones toward the end of extreme and persistent drought
https://eos.org/articles/the-bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall <https://eos.org/articles/the-bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall>
Open access Nature Communications article pdf here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12380-6 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12380-6>
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“Plants that are tall with isohydric stomatal regulation, low hydraulic conductance, and high leaf area are most likely to die from future drought stress. Thus, tall trees of old-growth forests are at the 
greatest risk of loss, which has ominous implications for terrestrial carbon storage.”

McDowell and Allen. Darcy’s law predicts widespread forest mortality under climate warming. 
Nature Climate Change. 2015

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”Precipitation is just the supply side," said study coauthor Jason Smerdon, a Lamont-Doherty paleoclimatologist. "Temperature is on the demand side, the part that dries things out." 

"If we don't see it coming in stronger in, say, the next 10 years, we might have to wonder whether we are right," said Marvel. "But all the models are projecting that you should see unprecedented drying soon, in a lot of places."

Precipitation over much of central America, Mexico the central and western United States and Europe is projected to stay about the same, or even increase. But, according to both the new study and a separate 2018 paper, rising temperatures and resulting evaporation of moisture from soils in those regions will probably predominate. 

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/eiac-ssf042919.php <https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/eiac-ssf042919.php>

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