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A conceptual framework for evaluation of climate effects on tree diseases is presented. Climate can exacerbate tree diseases by favouring pathogen biology, including reproduction and infection processes. Climatic conditions can also cause abiotic disease—direct stress or mortality when trees’ physiological limits are exceeded. When stress is sublethal, weakened trees may subsequently be killed by secondary organisms. To demonstrate climate's involvement in disease, associations between climatic conditions and disease expression provide the primary evidence of atmospheric involvement because experimentation is often impractical for mature trees. This framework tests spatial and temporal relationships of climate and disease at several scales to document climate effects, if any. The presence and absence of the disease can be contrasted with climate data and models at geographic scales: stand, regional …