Vermont Forest Indicators Dashboard

Maximum Temperature

Score for 2018:
--/5
Long-Term Trend:
Scores are 
As our climate changes, it is predicted that there will be greater variability in annual temperatures, as well as warmer maximum temperatures in the summer. Higher summer temperatures can lead to drought and heat stress to forests, resulting in declines in health and even mortality1,2,3. Here, we assess the change in maximum annual temperature in Vermont. As trees are adapted to the conditions they have experienced, deviations in maximum temperature from the long-term mean (both above and below) could be problematic to forests. Therefore, annual scores are computed as the change from the long-term mean.
1Anderegg, W.R., Kane, J.M. and Anderegg, L.D., 2013. Consequences of widespread tree mortality triggered by drought and temperature stress. Nature Climate Change, 3(1), pp.30-36.
2Williams, A.P., Allen, C.D., Macalady, A.K., Griffin, D., Woodhouse, C.A., Meko, D.M., Swetnam, T.W., Rauscher, S.A., Seager, R., Grissino-Mayer, H.D. and Dean, J.S., 2013. Temperature as a potent driver of regional forest drought stress and tree mortality. Nature Climate Change, 3(3), pp.292-297.
3Rustad, L., Campbell, J., Dukes, J.S., Huntington, T., Lambert, K.F., Mohan, J. and Rodenhouse, N., 2012. Changing climate, changing forests: The impacts of climate change on forests of the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.
FEMC Archive Resources
Dataset: Annual Summaries of Climate Trends in Vermont