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Climate change is a global phenomenon that has become a focus of concern for society, mainly due to its impacts on daily lives. Despite being a global issue that affects the entire planet, these effects are not felt in the same way in all regions, so the analysis of processes from a regional or local perspective allows a better adaptation of populations to the new reality, as well as being used as a supporting tool for decision making when implementing mitigation measures. For the present analysis, a region in Northern Portugal was chosen, which is in the Mediterranean region, considered one of the hot spots for climate change. In this region of Entre Douro e Minho, more specifically in the municipality of Guimarães, the climate of the last centuries was reconstructed based on documentary information and recent data collected and modeled for the region under study. The results show a successive alternation of hot and dry periods with colder and wetter ones, where climate instability seems to be the dominant trend over the last thousand years. Currently, with the advent of a new period of climatic instability, which, unlike the periods verified previously, now have an anthropic origin, there is a tendency for a new period to occur, in which conditions will tend to be hotter and drier. Knowing this trend in advance allows informed decisions to be made to mitigate some problems that can be associated with these conditions, such as the increase in the risk of wildfires, the proliferation of invasive species, the decrease in agriculture and forests productivity, or even the occurrence of extreme weather events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, climate change is assumed by many researchers and scholars as a certainty and is presented as the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. It is commonly accepted that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause that is accelerating the process. Therefore, it is urgent to find solutions to mitigate climate change, mainly because the intense effects have already been felt, in many cases in the form of the occurrence of extremely violent weather events. Forests are undoubtedly one of the most effective and easiest ways to provide the function of carbon sinks. However, it is essential and convenient to analyze the permanence time of this carbon in forests, because this permanence time depends directly on the forest management model used. This article aims to analyze forest management models from the perspective of carbon residence time in temperate forests, dividing the models into three types, namely carbon conservation models, carbon storage models, and carbon substitution models, according to their ability to contribute to functioning as carbon sinks, thereby contributing to the mitigation of climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With climate change being a certainty, which today is probably the biggest challenge humanity is facing, and also accepting that greenhouse gas emissions are the main cause accelerating climate change, there is an urgent need to find solutions that lead to the mitigation of the already intense, and in some cases, even violent, effects. Forests can most easily work as carbon sinks. However, it is convenient to analyze the residence time of this carbon in forests, as this residence time will depend on the type of forest management used. This paper aims to analyze forest management models from a perspective of carbon residence time in forests, dividing the models into three types: carbon conservation, carbon storage, and carbon substitution. Carbon conservation models are those models in which the amounts of carbon stored only replace the carbon released, mainly by the industrial use of raw materials. Carbon storage models are models that foster the growth of forest areas to ensure that the amount of carbon stored grows, and where the ratio clearly leans towards sequestration and storage. Carbon substitution models are models that move towards the substitution of fossil carbon by renewable carbon, thus contributing to the creation of a neutral flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]