The Fate of Trees: How Climate Change May Alter Forests Worldwide (Rolling Stone)

[pnwmom]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-fate-of-trees-how-climate-change-may-alter-forests-worldwide-20150312

In May 2011, a postdoctoral student at Los Alamos National Laboratory named Park Williams set out to predict the future of the dominant iconic conifers of the American Southwest — the Douglas fir, the piñon pine and the ponderosa pine. As the planet warms, the Southwest is projected to dry out and heat up unusually fast — few places will be more punishing to trees. Williams couldn't rely on climate models, whose representations of terrestrial vegetation remain crudely unspecific. He needed a formula that could accurately weigh the variables of heat, aridity and precipitation, and translate atmospheric projections into a unified measure of forest health.

For decades, all over the planet, heat-aggravated droughts had been killing trees: mountain acacia in Zimbabwe, Mediterranean pine in Greece, Atlas cedar in Morocco, eucalyptus and corymbia in Australia, fir in Turkey and South Korea. A year earlier, a group of ecologists had published the first global overview of forest health. They described droughts whose severity was unequaled in the "last few centuries" and documented "climate-driven episodes of regional-scale forest die-off." They couldn't prove causality, but if the warming climate was responsible, they warned, "far greater chronic forest stress and mortality risk should be expected in coming decades."

From a tree's perspective, excessive heat may be as deadly as lack of water. To photosynthesize, a tree opens pores in its leaves called stomata and inhales CO2. Solar-charged chemical reactions then transform the CO2 into carbohydrates — the raw stuff of leaves and wood. During this process, a fraction of the tree's internal water supply evaporates through its stomata, creating the negative pressure that pulls water from the soil into the tree's roots, through its trunk and up to its canopy. But heat juices the rate at which trees lose moisture, and that rate escalates exponentially with temperature — so small temperature increases can cause a photosynthesizing tree to lose dangerous amounts of water. "Forests notice even a one-degree increase in temperature," says Williams.

In the death scenario, the sky sucks water from the leaves faster than it can be replaced by water in the soil, and the resulting partial vacuum fatally fractures the tree's water column. If a tree closes its stomata to avoid this, shutting down photosynthesis, it risks starvation. Ultimately, the tree's cellular chemistry will fail, but it will often die before that, as its defenses fall; the complexly toxic sap that repels predatory insects dries up. Many insects can detect diminished sap levels within tree bark by scent — they smell drought stress and pheromonally broadcast news of deteriorating tree health. Other defenses – against microbes, for example — may also be compromised. A hotter climate generally means more insects. It also means more, and more intense, wildfires.

SNIP

[pbmus]

1. Unfortunately ...we cannot plant enough trees to reverse the damage

[pnwmom]

2. We can't reverse it completely, but we can still mitigate the damage.

And we are obligated to try.

[SoCalDem]

3. aaanhh.. a flash-back to 7th grade

My 7th grade home room teacher was distantly related to Joyce Kilmer, so every morning after the pledge of allegiance, we had to recite "Trees"...

"I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree...."

[HuckleB]

7. Actually, we can.

The question is whether we can overcome both the bio-fuel goofballs and the anti-science "enviro" goofballs and use actual good technology.

[HuckleB]

4. And let's make sure that technology is not used to help make things better!

No GMO!

[pnwmom]

5. Technology got us into this mess. The wrong kind of technology.

Every technological and scientific advance isn't of equal value, and some risk making climate change worse.

http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/appcd/climate_change.html

Addressing climate change is a tremendous risk management challenge. Approaches that have been identified for reducing GHG emissions involve large-scale changes to technologies for generating electricity, providing transportation, and powering industry, businesses, and homes. As these technology changes are made, we will see changes in environmental impacts. In many cases, these changes are highly beneficial –improving vehicle fuel efficiency will result in both reduced emissions of GHGs and other pollutants, and so will help improve or maintain air quality. However, there is also the potential for adverse and unintended consequences that are caused by these technological changes. Our interests are to identify what some of these adverse consequences might be and determine how to make sure that these changes take place in ways that are as sustainable as possible.

[HuckleB]

6. Bzzzzt. Wrong, as usual.

Why do you fail to recognize reality? Your post merely points out the fact that biology and chemistry and etc.. exist.

Most of your posts ignore what's more positive and less positive, and foment fear based on the tiniest nibble of the topic. Please don't respond to my posts. You don't want to discuss anything openly, and it's lame to try to waste my time.

[pnwmom]

8. "Please don't respond to my posts." LOL. Please don't respond to my OP's.

"It's lame to try to waste my time."

If you don't want to waste your precious, precious time, then don't respond to my O.P.'s.

But I know you can't help yourself.

[RobertEarl]

9. Is huckle suggesting...

That we should use technology like filling our atmosphere with chemicals that would somehow absorb co2? Like, oh, i don't know, maybe CHEMTRAILS?

[pnwmom]

10. Maybe . . . He's so busy trying to insult me for "failing to recognize reality"

that he doesn't offer any specific details.

But I got my Huck-vaccine a long time ago.



(And every time he tells me not to respond to him -- in a thread I started, no less -- I get a booster.)

[BuddhaGirl]

11. Kick!

Great article