Climate risks set to reshape Europes forests by century end

by Robert Schreiber
Berlin, Germany (SPX) Mar 09, 2026
Wildfires, storms, and bark beetles are poised to transform Europes forests over the coming decades, with new modeling indicating that climate driven disturbance could markedly increase by 2100. A large international team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has, for the first time, quantified how much of Europes forest area may be affected by these forces under different warming scenarios.

Tree mortality has always been part of natural forest dynamics, as old trees die and younger cohorts establish the next canopy. What is changing is the scale at which extreme events and pest outbreaks, amplified by a warming climate, are reshaping forest structure and function across the continent. Recent years have already brought dramatic damage in parts of Central Europe, yet until now the long term extent of potential disturbance remained unclear.

The researchers report that under a high warming pathway of just over 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, the total area disturbed by fires, storms, and bark beetles across Europe could more than double relative to recent decades. As a reference, they used satellite based records of disturbance from 1986 to 2020, a period that already exhibited unusually high levels of forest damage. Even in a lower warming case, in which global temperature rise is limited to roughly 2 degrees Celsius, the models still project that future disturbance will exceed the reference period.

To build these projections, the team developed an AI based simulation framework trained on 135 million data points derived from forest simulations at 13,000 locations distributed across Europe. These data were combined with multi decadal satellite observations of past disturbances to calibrate how fires, storms, and bark beetle outbreaks respond to changing climate and forest conditions. The resulting model can resolve forest development and disturbance dynamics at the scale of a single hectare, providing detailed insights into how risk evolves regionally.

The study finds pronounced regional differences in how forests are likely to be affected. Forests in southern and western Europe emerge as particular hotspots, with the strongest increases in disturbance frequency and intensity projected for these regions. Northern European forests are expected to experience comparatively smaller overall changes, but the simulations still highlight localized areas where future damage could be substantial.

According to lead author Rupert Seidl, Professor of Ecosystem Dynamics and Forest Management at TUM, disturbances are increasingly becoming a cross regional issue that can ripple through timber markets and ecosystem services far beyond the directly affected areas. These events influence how much carbon forests can store, how much timber they can reliably supply, and what kinds of habitats they provide for biodiversity. As disturbance levels rise, the stability of these services for European societies becomes more uncertain.

The authors argue that forest policy and management strategies across Europe must urgently adapt to this emerging reality. On one side, managers and policymakers need to prepare for stronger fluctuations in timber supply, carbon storage, and other forest based benefits, and develop buffers and contingency plans. On the other, disturbance events also open windows to re establish stands with more climate resilient species mixes and structures, effectively using damage as a catalyst to accelerate necessary adaptation.

Seidl emphasizes that forestry must address both the risks and opportunities linked to rising disturbance levels, and that new scientific methods such as continental scale AI simulations can support this shift. By integrating forward looking disturbance projections into planning, forest agencies and landowners can better align regeneration, species selection, and risk reduction measures with the climate conditions expected later this century.

Research Report:Climate change will increase forest disturbances in Europe throughout the 21st century