New Article Featuring SNRE's Dr. Dave Breshears

A new article published online features SNRE's Dr. Dave Breshears and his collaborative research in Western Australia. Breshears' research highlights the interconnectedness of ocean and land, showing that landfalling droughts, or droughts that begin over the ocean, can damage marine and terrestrial ecosystems simultaenously. Landfalling droughts can inflict mass mortality of trees and coral reefs that facilitates a cascade of consequences across trophic levels. Importantly, climate change exacerbates drought conditions, which in turn kill carbon sequestering trees, presenting a concerning feedback loop. Breshears' research is important for understanding complex ecophysiological relationships to improve planning for reducing atmospheric carbon.
 
Droughts have far-reaching effects on human populations and limit resilience against heat waves and other extreme consequences of cilmate change. Thanks to important work done by researchers like Dr. Breshears, climate scientists are now building their capacity to predict and track landfall droughts to provide people with an early warning system to prepare. Read the full story here.
 
Slideshow Photo by Miltiadis Fragkidis on Unsplash