Rising global temperatures due to human greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to Earth's forests. Notably, increasing temperature has been linked to higher frequency and intensity of drought-induced forest background mortality and die-off (Allen et al., 2015;Breshears et al., 2009;Williams et al., 2012). Largescale forest die-off is of particular concern due to its dramatic disruption of forest function, with large consequences on biodiversity (Betts et al., 2017;Feng et al., 2021), ecosystem goods and services, and forests' prominent role in the global carbon cycle (Anderegg, Trugman, Badgley, Anderson, et al., 2020). The western US has experienced extensive drought-and insect-induced tree mortality over the past decades, associated with strong drying trends in the area (