FlashForest

Lightning is an important but often underestimated disturbance in forest ecosystems. Recent research suggests that lightning may be the major cause of large tree mortality in tropical forests. Also in some temperate forests, lightning is considered an important cause of mortality. Lightning thus crucially affects forest dynamics and carbon storage. 
Nevertheless, lightning-caused tree mortality is not represented in state-of-the-art dynamic vegetation models. This is particularly worrying because the ecological impacts of lightning might even increase in the future given anticipated increases in lightning frequency under climate change. 

The project FlashForest aims to implement lightning-induced tree mortality in the dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS to assess the importance of lightning on forest ecosystems and to investigate the impacts of future changes in lightning activity.