Beliefs, expectations and values are often assumed to drive decisions about climate change adaptation. We tested hypotheses based on this assumption using survey responses from 508 European forest professionals in ten countries. We used the survey results to identify communication needs and the decision strategies at play, and to develop guidelines on adequate communications about climate change adaptation. We observed polarization in the positive and negative values associated with climate change impacts accepted by survey respondents. We identified a mechanism creating the polarization that we call the ‘blocked belief’ effect. We found that polarized values did not correlate with decisions about climate change adaptation. Strong belief in the local impacts of climate change on the forest was, however, a prerequisite of decision-making favoring adaptation. Decision-making in favor of adaptation to climate change also correlated with net values of expected specific impacts on the forest and generally increased with the absolute value of these in the absence of ‘tipping point’ behavior. Tipping point behavior occurs when adaptation is not pursued in spite of the strongly negative or positive net value of expected climate change impacts. We observed negative and positive tipping point behavior, mainly in SW Europe and N-NE Europe, respectively. In addition we found that advice on effective adaptation may inhibit adaptation when the receiver is aware of effective adaptation measures unless it is balanced with information explaining how climate change leads to negative impacts. Forest professionals with weak expectations of impacts require communications on climate change and its impacts on forests before any advice on adaptation measures can be effective. We develop evidence-based guidelines on communications using a new methodology which includes Bayesian machine learning modeling of the equivalent of an expected utility function for the adaptation decision problem.

The role of values in climate-related decision-making is a prominent theme of climate communication research. The present study examines whether forest professionals are more driven by values than scientists are, and if this results in value polarization. A questionnaire was designed to elicit and assess the values assigned to expected effects of climate change by forest professionals and scientists working on forests and climate change in Europe. The countries involved covered a north-to-south and west-to-east gradient across Europe, representing a wide range of bio-climatic conditions and a mix of economic–social–political structures. We show that European forest professionals and scientists do not exhibit polarized expectations about the values of specific impacts of climate change on forests in their countries. In fact, few differences between forest professionals and scientists were found. However, there are interesting differences in the expected values of forest professionals with regard to climate change impacts across European countries. In Northern European countries, the aggregated values of the expected effects are more neutral than they are in Southern Europe, where they are more negative. Expectations about impacts on timber production, economic returns, and regulatory ecosystem services are mostly negative, while expectations about biodiversity and energy production are mostly positive.

The objective of this paper is to assess how much carbon (C) is currently stored in a forest district in Thuringia, Germany, and how the carbon stocks will develop up to the year 2099 with a changing climate and under various management regimes (including no management), with different assumptions about carbon dioxide (CO2) fertilization effects. We applied the process-based model 4C and a wood product model to a forest district in Germany and evaluated both models for the period from 2002 to 2010, based on forest inventory data for the stands in the district. Then, we simulated the growth of the stands in the forest district under three different realizations of a climate change scenario, combined with different management regimes. Our simulations show that in 2099, between 630 and 1149 t C ha−1 will be stored in this district. The simulations also showed that climate change affects carbon sequestration. The no management strategy sequestered the highest amount of carbon (8.7 t C ha−1 year−1), which was greater than the management regimes. In the model, the possible fertilization effect of CO2 is an important factor. However, forest management remains the determining factor in this forest district.

This paper shows that the process-based forest growth model 4C coupled with a socio-economic analysis model (SEA) is able to simulate the development of beech stands in Thuringia under different management regimes and to evaluate the economic balance of the stands for a period of over 100 years.The initialization of 4C was based on a thinning experiment of the TU Dresden, started in 1959 in the forest district Buchfart. The growth of four experimental plots was simulated up to 2006 by using historical climate data and from 2007 onwards using three climate scenarios up to the year 2058. Both the business balance and the carbon storage balances were discounted by a rate of 2% per anno. It turns out that a possible future climate change has a significant impact on the business balance and the carbon storage balance.The carbon storage balance from 1959 to 2058 ranges between 505 t C ha(-1) (OK scenario, weak thinning from above; see Table 3) and 712 t C ha(-1) (3K scenario, no management) or with 2% discount rate between 173 t C ha(-1) (OK scenario, weak thinning from above) and 235 t C ha(-1) (3K scenario, no management).The initial value of the experimental plots in 1959 was negative on all experimental sites with an average of -3469 (sic) ha(-1) (Table 1) and rose to 2058 by an average of 26 753 (sic) ha(-1) (Table 4). The averaged management costs during this period amounted to 305 (sic) ha(-1) yr(-1), whereas the proceeds by the sale of timber were on average 303 (sic) ha(-1) yr(-1). The capital-value of the four experimental sites, expanded by the increase of the liquidation value and discounted with a discount rate of 2% per anno, fluctuated in 2058 between 3111 (sic) ha(-1) (OK scenario, no management) and 8283 (sic) ha(-1) (3K scenario, heavy thinning from above).The study shows that from an economic point of view it is often more appropriate to abandon the usual thinning management of beech stands with heavy thinning from above in favour of management fostering stronger carbon storage. With medium thinning from below 27 t C ha(-1) were stored additionally and with no management 38 t C ha(-1) in comparison with heavy thinning from above. The increase in carbon storage in the forest by medium thinning from below and no management was, however, associated with additional costs or lower revenues of 112 (sic) and 123 (sic) per additional ton of carbon stored respectively (Table 5). These costs form the lower price limit at which a management change could pay off economically in the forest.

Title of the paper: Carbon storage in beech stands depending on forest management regime and climate change.This paper shows that the process-based forest growth model 4C is able to simulate the development of beech stands in Thuringia under different management regimes and that the growth of beech stands can be estimated over 100 years. In a first step, we validated the ecophysiological forest growth model 4C (Figure 1) and the wood product model (WPM, Figure 2) for the time period 1959-2009 in Thuringia, based on a thinning experiment of the TU Dresden started in 1959 in the forest district Buchfart (Table 3). 4C successfully simulated the past growth of the four study sites independent of the thinning regime (Figure 1). WPM successfully simulated the carbon storage in wood products based on simulated wood harvest.In a second step, we simulated the growth of the study sites under three climate change scenarios and the respective management regime from 2007-2058. These simulations show that climate change until the year 2058 has impacts on carbon storage. The unmanaged experimental site under the 3K-scenario stores the highest amount of total carbon (900 t C ha(-1) in deadwood, living biomass, soil and harvested wood) compared to other management regimes. The experimental site managed with a weak thinning from above under the same climate scenario stores the lowest amount of total carbon, namely 774 t C ha(-1) (Table 5). The different management regimes lead, under the same site conditions in the model, to a maximum change in total carbon storage of 126 t C per hectare until the year 2058 (3K scenario: heavy thinning from above compared to unmanaged). The different climate change scenarios starting in the year 2007 only result in a maximum change of 65 t C ha-1 (heavy thinning from above: 0K scenario compared to 3K scenario, cf. Table 5). Thus, the influence of forest management in the model remains a more important factor than the projected effects of climate change until the year 2058.