Study
Climate-driven risks to the climate mitigation potential of forests
Anderegg, W. R. L.; Trugman, A. T.; Badgley, G.; Anderson, C. M.; Bartuska, A.; Ciais, P.; Cullenward, D.; Field, C. B.; Freeman, J.; Goetz, S. J.; Hicke, J. A.; Huntzinger, D.; Jackson, R. B.; Nickerson, J.; Pacala, S.; Randerson, J. T.
Science, 2020
A synthesis of the physical risks to carbon already stored in forests — fire, drought, insect outbreak and human clearance — and of how those risks are treated in carbon crediting schemes.
Carbon held in forests is exposed to disturbance that is increasing with climate change, and the permanence assumed by many accounting schemes is not supported by the physical risk.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Forest carbon storage carries substantial and growing risk of reversal, which policy and crediting frameworks systematically under-weight.
How NatureHQ reads it
The point a reader needs when told a forest has locked carbon away. Storage is a loan, not a deposit: it holds while the forest holds. That is not an argument against forests, which remain among the largest terrestrial carbon stores there are; it is the reason a tonne stored in wood and a tonne left unburned in the ground are not interchangeable, and the reason carbon residence time belongs in any honest account of what a tree does.
- A synthesis, not new measurement.
- Risk projections depend on climate and disturbance models with wide uncertainty.
- Focused on carbon; the other reasons forests matter are outside its scope.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Trees and carbon
The world’s forests take up an enormous quantity of carbon, and clearance cancels much of it.
Trees and carbon
Most of the carbon a forest captures goes back into the air. What matters is how long it stays.
Trees and carbon
How much carbon tree planting could remove is genuinely disputed, and the famous figure was challenged hard.
Forests
Fire, wind, drought and insects are how many forests renew themselves — and they are getting more frequent.
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of SciencePublished in Science or Science Advances (AAAS).
doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz7005
This reference was resolved automatically against Crossref and OpenAlex on 2026-08-30.
NatureHQ summarises research in its own words and does not reproduce published text. Reviewed 2026-08-30.