SiCLIMA: High-resolution hydroclimate and temperature dataset for Aragón (northeast Spain).

A new high-resolution climatic gridded dataset was built for Aragón (northeast Spain) using a large collection of daily precipitation and temperature observations from more than 3000 weather stations. The grid covers, at the unprecedented spatial resolution of 0.25 km2, daily maximum and minimum temperatures and precipitation in the 1950-2020 period. The complex orography (from 70 to 3,400 m.a.s.l.) of the medium-sized region (∼48,000 km2) required a climate modelling method based on a spatially-dense weather monitoring network and local predictors. The 3-step workflow for grid creation consisted of: 1) a comprehensive quality control of raw observations, based on a spatial comparison with nearest data; 2) a climate reconstruction based on the creation of reference values, through multivariate linear regressions, for every day and location, based on the observed climate and terrain-based environmental variables; and 3) the prediction of precipitation and temperature values in a regular 500 × 500 m grid, based on the reconstructed data series. The resulting dataset improves the spatial representativity of climate and allows for a detailed analyses at landscape scale not only in climate studies but also in related disciplines such as hydrology or biogeography, amongst others.

Climate-change-driven growth decline of European beech forests.

The growth of past, present, and future forests was, is and will be affected by climate variability. This multifaceted relationship has been assessed in several regional studies, but spatially resolved, large-scale analyses are largely missing so far. Here we estimate recent changes in growth of 5800 beech trees (Fagus sylvatica L.) from 324 sites, representing the full geographic and climatic range of species. Future growth trends were predicted considering state-of-the-art climate scenarios. The validated models indicate growth declines across large region of the distribution in recent decades, and project severe future growth declines ranging from -20% to more than -50% by 2090, depending on the region and climate change scenario (i.e. CMIP6 SSP1-2.6 and SSP5-8.5). Forecasted forest productivity losses are most striking towards the southern distribution limit of Fagus sylvatica, in regions where persisting atmospheric high-pressure systems are expected to increase drought severity. The projected 21st century growth changes across Europe indicate serious ecological and economic consequences that require immediate forest adaptation.