How do forests keep their cool? A 1.89 million Swiss Francs question.

Charlotte Grossiord holds a joint professorship at the Federal institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape research WSL and EPFL. She studies how climate change affects forests – from cellular processes to entire ecosystems – and how negative impacts can be mitigated. 

The grant will fund the project “COOL - Trouble in the air” for the next five years, in which Grossiord and her team will investigate how European forests respond as heatwaves grow more frequent and intense under climate change. These extreme weather events bring about not only drier soils but also hotter, drier air. This combination creates an “atmospheric thirst,” a lesser-known form of drought that draws water from trees faster than they can absorb it, threatening forest health. 

The PERL lab will examine the mechanisms that help European forests withstand this additional climatic stressor and understand why some tree species are more heat and drought-tolerant than others. Their findings will provide key insights into future forest ecosystems and help practitioners manage forests in a climate-adapted manner.