Modelling drought-induced dieback of Aleppo pine at the arid timberline Lisa Wingate and Jérôme Ogée French National Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment (INRAE), France

During the mid 1960’s an ambitious afforestation programme was initiated in the Negev desert of Israel whilst nearby a young boy named Dan Yakir was taking his first steps. As these trees began to take root and grow in this challenging environment, so too did Dan. By the 1980’s Dan was travelling the world building skills, ideas and collaborations, whilst measuring the impact of climate on plant water and carbon status and demonstrating how changes in plant function could cause important feedbacks that modified the chemistry of the atmosphere as well as the climate of the surrounding environment. Upon Dan’s return to the Weizmann Institute of Science in the 1990’s he began to drive his energy, knowledge and resources into understanding and measuring the behaviour of those very trees that had continued to grow productively during his early career. Naturally Dan became concerned about the fate of the Negev desert forest as it faced increasing disruptions in rainfall amount and pattern. These questions and concerns underpin our presentation today and celebrate a long-term collaboration between our team here in France and Dan’s working in the Yatir forest that bring together our mutual skills in micrometeorology, dendro-climatology and process-based modelling of plant- soil-atmosphere interactions.