In a study recently published in Nature Geoscience, researchers analyzed the loss of aboveground biomass in European forests between 1985 and 2023 using satellite data. Biomass includes all wood, branches and leaves above ground. In essence, it is a natural carbon bank. Biomass can absorb carbon, helping to reduce global warming, while also supporting biodiversity. When biomass is destroyed, for example through decomposition or fire, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

Tiit Maran, who holds a doctorate in biology, told Vikerraadio that the study found European forests have lost 6.5 billion metric tons of biomass over nearly four decades. Although the lion's share, or 82 percent, can still be attributed to clear-cutting, researchers are particularly concerned about natural disturbances such as bark beetles, storms, droughts and wildfires. Biomass loss caused by natural disturbances has surged by nearly 50 percent since 2018.

The study suggests 2018 marked a turning point of sorts. From 2018 to 2022, Europe was hit by a historic drought that weakened trees and left them vulnerable to attacks by the European spruce bark beetle. Areas of Central Europe with dense, old forests were hit particularly hard, as damage to even small patches of forest can result in disproportionately large carbon losses.

"We have two major factors simultaneously affecting this extremely important ecosystem and that adds an entirely new dimension to the issue. In other words, we are no longer talking about forests only in terms of biodiversity or the economy. Increasingly, what matters is the overall state of our forests across Europe because that will affect how our climate develops. So we are on the threshold of very significant changes," Maran said.

The European Union's climate targets rely heavily on the assumption that forests absorb more carbon from the atmosphere than they release into it. When forests die, they shift from carbon sinks to carbon sources. The trend identified in the study runs counter to the EU's goal of increasing carbon sequestration by 2030. The study therefore calls into question the European Union's hopes of relying on forests as a dependable tool for mitigating climate change in the coming years.

According to Maran, the findings of this and several previous studies indicate that a different approach is needed toward the environment, and forests in this case, than in the past. "We cannot look at forests solely from an economic perspective as a resource base. All of this needs to be placed in a broader context. Forests are ultimately a determining factor in whether we can continue to live anything resembling a normal existence," he said.

Maran explained that forests do indeed help stabilize the climate through cloud formation and energy and water cycles. At the same time, he said, the changes have reached a point where their effects are beginning to affect the ecosystem itself. "We are starting to approach some kind of threshold. We are on the verge of very significant changes and these changes need to be taken very seriously," he said.

These changes, however, are global. It is therefore important to thoroughly reconsider how society and the economy function so they can adapt to new conditions because it is no longer possible to prevent all of the changes — some are already here.

"It's true that the weather is fairly cool here at the moment, but if we look at what is happening not very far to our west, the situation is very bleak. And when you also consider how the effects of climate change are steadily moving northward and eastward, they will inevitably reach us much more strongly at some point," Maran said.

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