Climate Change and Our Forests

Delivered: Online. (A link to participate in the session will be sent to everyone who signs up 24hrs before the start of the event).

Our Climate Action Talks are continuing online! After our first webinar addressed the impact of climate change on global disease dynamics, we will now feature a talk on the living carbon storage of the earth – our forests.

Join us in our second webinar of the climate change series, where we are pleased to welcome Professor Rob MacKenzie, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of Birmingham. The session will explore and explain the impact that rising CO2 levels have on forests around the world.

Professor MacKenzie has the academic lead for BIFoR FACE, a £15M research project that led to the establishment of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research and assesses how increasing CO2 levels affect forest ecosystems. During the webinar, Professor MacKenzie will talk about one of the largest global change experiments in the world that he and his team implement. This project investigates how trees are affected by changes in our atmosphere and how these changes are propagated to other animals, plants, and microbes living in forests.

BIFoR FACE is set in a broadleaf forest dominated by 160-year-old oak trees in the Midlands. CO2-enrichment treatments, which are scheduled to run until 2026, started in spring 2017 and the forest has already responded very promptly to its changed atmosphere. The 50 million dollar question Professor MacKenzie and his team are trying to answer is how these changes will affect carbon, nutrient, and water cycles in the future.

Stag amongst wilderness
Forest containing person in a yellow jacket standing amongst tall trees

Once you have booked your place, you will receive an email the day before the event with a link to the Blackboard platform where the webinar will be held.

Book your place