{"id":611390,"date":"2026-09-01T17:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/611390\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T17:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T17:18:09","slug":"high-winds-during-el-nino-could-be-deadly-for-englands-stressed-trees-say-experts-trees-and-forests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/611390\/","title":{"rendered":"High winds during El Ni\u00f1o could be deadly for England\u2019s stressed trees, say experts | Trees and forests"},"content":{"rendered":"

High winds associated with El Ni\u00f1o could cause widespread mortality among tree species already weakened by a prolonged period of extreme heat and drought, experts have warned.<\/p>\n

This summer much of Europe has been scorched by a series of record-breaking climate crisis-induced heatwaves<\/a>. The impact is notable across much of England\u2019s countryside, where once green land<\/a> has turned brown, and many trees are undergoing \u201cearly autumn\u201d<\/a> \u2013 wilting and losing their leaves early \u2013 to cope with extreme heat.<\/p>\n

Kevin Martin, head of tree collections at Kew Gardens, said to cope with these extreme conditions, trees had not grown as they normally would, and had become less flexible and more brittle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we see the extreme winds that are predicted this year because of El Ni\u00f1o, we\u2019re going to see potentially large impacts on trees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Met Office has said the El Ni\u00f1o event developing over the Pacific Ocean is likely to be the strongest for more than a century<\/a>, with increased rainfall and storms forecast to hit the UK this autumn. El Ni\u00f1o is a natural phenomena that has been made worse by global heating.<\/p>\n

\"CouldCould \u2018Godzilla\u2019 El Ni\u00f1o bring the hottest year on record? \u2013 video explainer<\/p>\n

Martin said this extreme weather could lead to root death, where dry weather followed by heavy rain can undermine the structure of the soil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could then start to see some trees actually fail at the root plate. I\u2019m really worried about this autumn,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s weather has been so extreme that Martin thinks some species could be lost completely from certain landscapes. \u201cWe may lose species like the silver birch, the common beech and oak from landscapes where we\u2019re used to seeing them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While the impact is widespread, the heat is disproportionately affecting the oldest trees, with experts warning that England\u2019s ancient oaks are dying<\/a> in the hot and dry weather.<\/p>\n

Martin said that what made 2026 so unprecedented was the spring heatwave<\/a>, when temperatures reached 35C, making it the hottest May ever recorded. \u201cThe whole growing season this year has been under stress, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever experienced environmental impact like this before,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Simon Richmond, a technical officer at the Arboricultural Association, said trees were extremely resilient organisms, able to adapt to one-off years of extreme weather. However, he said the \u201cdanger that we face now is the likelihood with climate change of this being a prolonged pattern of weather\u201d.<\/p>\n

After the 2022 heatwave, Kew Gardens lost more than 400 trees due to heat and drought. Martin thinks the impact of the 2026 heatwave could be much worse.<\/p>\n

He predicts that at Kew and across the south-east, there will be a \u201csignificant amount of mortality\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I can see from the landscape here at Kew, we\u2019re going to see a lot more mortality than what we saw in 2022 because a lot of trees that just got through 2022 are not going to make it through this year.\u201d However, he said the full impact of this year\u2019s extreme weather would not be known for the next two to three years.<\/p>\n

Marcus Lindner, a principal scientist at the European Forest Institute, said that several years of extreme weather could push certain species over the edge, with almost all tree species at risk from the changing climate.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpecies that are normally drought-tolerant are adapted to a certain level of drought stress, but if we have continuous and repeated drought these trees will at some point not be comfortable with that any more,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High winds associated with El Ni\u00f1o could cause widespread mortality among tree species already weakened by a prolonged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82],"class_list":["post-611390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}