{
  "abstract": "Forests are carbon sinks essential for climate change mitigation. However, increased harvests and natural disturbances across Europe have recently challenged this role. To project the future carbon sink capacity of Europe's forests, we integrated country reports from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with remote sensing maps of disturbances and above-ground biomass. Our model simulates biomass dynamics at 18 km resolution from 2010 to 2030, predicting a 39% decrease in the EU-27 forest carbon sink, driven by disturbances outpacing biomass recovery. Consequently, the 2030 forest carbon sink will fall 27% short of the estimated target consistent with EU-27 climate objectives. We demonstrate that the three billion trees initiative is insufficient for climate change mitigation and needs to be combined with a 28% reduction in forest harvests from 2025 to 2030 to meet these targets.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris Saclay , Gif-sur-Yvette 91191 ,",
    "University of Copenhagen Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, , Copenhagen 1350 ,",
    "Earth Observation for Ecosystem Management, School of Life Sciences, Technical University of Munich, Freising 85354 ,",
    "Gamma Remote Sensing , Gümligen 3073 ,",
    "Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry , Jena 07745 ,",
    "GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences , Potsdam 14473 ,",
    "Consultant for Engineering Ingegneria Informatica S.p.A. , Rome 00144 ,"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 13,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "François Ritter",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6123-2145"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Philippe Ciais",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-8560-4943"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Cornelius Senf",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-2389-2158"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Maurizio Santoro"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Yidi Xu",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1528-4256"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Agnès Pellissier‐Tanon",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0840-0933"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Martin Schwartz",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-4038-9068"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ibrahim Fayad",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-7504-5623"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Nuno Carvalhais"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Martin Brandt"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Rasmus Fensholt"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Simon Besnard"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Valerio Avitabile"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5a0rxpd3a18md.bib",
  "cited_by": 6,
  "doi": "10.1093/nsr/nwag354",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "5a0rxpd3a18md",
  "issns": [
    "2053-714X",
    "2095-5138"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwag354",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2306|Forest Management and Policy"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W4393482217",
  "pdf_url": null,
  "pmcid": "PMC13463641",
  "pmid": "42592248",
  "published": "2026-06-10",
  "publisher": "Oxford University Press",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5a0rxpd3a18md.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T13:21:17Z",
      "native_id": "W4393482217",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwag354"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "earth",
      "origin": "openalex:2306|Forest Management and Policy",
      "subfield": "climate"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Alarming decline in the carbon sink of European forests driven by disturbances",
  "title_text": "Alarming decline in the carbon sink of European forests driven by disturbances",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T13:20:43Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5a0rxpd3a18md",
  "venue": "National Science Review",
  "versions": []
}