Potential impacts of climate change on wood deterioration

Climate changes were discussed in many disciplines during recent years. The discussion mainly focused on three aspects: the significance of climate changes, anthropogenic sources for climate changes and finally potential consequences on ecological and economical patterns. This study concentrates on potential impacts of global warming and corresponding moistening on the durability of wooden building components. From experimental test set-ups in the field, climatic data, wood temperature and wood moisture content were used for mathematic modelling of decay. On that basis, a first attempt is made to quantify the influence of climate changes on wood decay rates for various scenarios. It became obvious that warming and humidification will lead to significantly reduced service lives of wooden building components. The quantity of climate induced changes strongly depends on the geographical position and the present climate. Differences between climatically divergent places are shown exemplarily for the si...