Responses of European forest ecosystems to 21st century climate: assessing changes in interannual variability and fire intensity

Significant climatic changes are currently observed and, according to projections, will be strengthened over the 21st century throughout the world with the continuing increase of the atmospheric CO2 concentration. Climate will be generally warmer with notably changes in the seasonality and in the precipitation regime. These changes will have major impacts on the biodiversity and the functioning of natural ecosystems. The CARAIB dynamic vegetation model driven by the ARPEGE/Climate model under forcing from the A2 IPCC emission scenario is used to illustrate and analyse the potential impacts of climate change on forest productivity and distribution as well as fire intensity over Europe. The potential CO2 fertilizing effect is studied throughout transient runs of the vegetation model over the 1961-2100 period assuming constant and increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Without fertilisation effect, the net primary productivity (NPP) might increase in high latitudes and altitudes (by up to 40 % or even 60-100 %) while it might decrease in temperate (by up to 50 %) and in warmer regions, e.g., Mediterranean area (by up to 80 %). This strong decrease in NPP is associated with recurrent drought events occurring mostly in summer time. Under rising CO2 concentration, NPP increases all over Europe by as much as 25-75%, but it is not clear whether or not soils might sustain such an increase. The model indicates also that interannual NPP variability might strongly increase in the areas which will undergo recurrent water stress in the future. During the years exhibiting summer drought, the NPP might decrease to values much lower than present-day average NPP even when CO2 fertilization is included. Moreover, years with such events will happen much more frequently than today. Regions with more severe droughts might also be affected by an increase of wildfire frequency and intensity, which may have large impacts on vegetation density and distribution. For instance, in the Mediterranean basin, the area burned by wildfire can be expected to increase by a factor of 3-5 at the end of the 21st century compared to present.