Are Europe’s green summer forests a thing of the past?

Droughts and heatwaves are causing Europe’s forests to turn brown in the summer months.

Last year, 37 per cent of Mediterranean and central European forests were affected, a new study reveals.

Researchers from ETH Zurich University and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have been examining the phenomenon over the past 21 years.

The results, published in the journal Biogeosciences, show that summer forest browning is spreading across Europe.

What’s behind summer forest browning in Europe?

Using high-resolution satellite data, researchers identified periods where areas of forest were not as green as they should be during summer.