The Beetles: Eighty-Nine Million Acres of Abrupt Climate Change

[marmar]

The Beetles: Eighty-Nine Million Acres of Abrupt Climate Change

Tuesday, 16 February 2016 00:00
By Bruce Melton, Truthout | Report



[font size="1"]A 100,000-acre spruce beetle kill drapes this alpine mountain park like a heavy wool blanket. Except for a green strip of young trees along the old logging roads that crisscross forested areas like these, 90 percent or more of the rest of the forest has been killed. Groundhog Park, La Garita Range, Rio Grande National Forest, south central Colorado, elevation 11,000 feet. Background: Mesa Mountain, elevation 12,994 feet. (Photo: Bruce Melton)[/font]

We were awash for 19 days in a tumultuous sea of mountains and forests, drifting a course through the heart of the US Rockies on a 6,000-mile journey of observation. Our film, What Have We Done, the North American Pine Beetle Pandemic, was released in 2009. It was the story of what is now 89 million acres of forest across the North American West that have been attacked by native insects. These insects had been driven to unprecedented numbers by warming that is twice or more the global average. Most of the trees in impacted forests were killed in the wake of the beetles.

It has been four years since the Climate Change Now Initiative's last post-film observation in 2010. Our epic crossing was different on that final journey. The mountainsides of impacted forests were not predominantly bright red. Some were red. Some were brown. And ghost forest of gray needleless conifers at times spread to the horizon.

My wife was along on this trip, on what is usually a solo operation. It was the first of these incredible journeys on which she has been able to accompany me. At an average of 285 miles per day, this was a little tamer than most, but still a grueling but exquisitely beautiful 21-day adventure across the Rockies.

The mountain pine beetle - a single species of native beetle - had attacked an area that was 20 times larger than ever recorded. From 60 to nearly 100 percent of the trees in those forests were killed. It began in the late 1990s and was widespread from New Mexico to British Columbia. The reasons for the attack were many but largely, warming has virtually eliminated the cold temperatures that have previously kept beetle populations under control. ..............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34853-the-beetles-eighty-nine-million-acres-of-abrupt-climate-change

[islandmkl]

1. and then....the fires come

[Binkie The Clown]

3. My first thought looking at that picture: look at all that dry tinder. n/t

[2naSalit]

2. Very good article.

It makes a number of valid points and I am watching this transformation of our forests right outside my front door. this is a major issue out here, there are the fires, timber harvest, beetles, and "rust" - a fungi, killing off the forests of the west. A major factor is the warming, it isn't cold enough for long enough to kill off the larvae in winter, and other tree killing elements but there isn't much mention, outside the northern Rockies, about a major human contribution to the ill health of our forests.

There also four dams on the Columbia and upper Snake Rivers which have, in less than 30 years after construction, depleted the salmon fisheries all over the northern Rockies. How is that, one might ask? The health of any flora is dependent upon availability of nutrients for survival and to thrive, pass on genetics. What does a mountain forest need for food? It needs everything extant within its ecosystem prior to our messing it up which includes the bodies of kazillions of spawned-out salmon and any other anadramous fish who originate in the ecosystem. Salmon begin their life in small creeks, streams in headwaters of great waterways that drain into the ocean. These smolts (baby fish) feed on their parents and other fish as they make their way to the ocean where they live for up to four years, depending on the actual species' life cycle, and feed on ocean derived nutrients. According to their natural cycle each species returns to its place of birth/hatching to leave their progeny to carry out another cycle. The important thing about this cycle is that the mature fish do not feed on the journey home yet they bring ocean derived nutrients back home with them, phosphates and nitrates that are not found in their birthplace which happens to be up to 1700 miles inland... in the Rockies. With the obstruction of the dams along a major inland to sea waterway, the salmon have only returned in paltry numbers. This has been going on since the dam construction era (1930's - 1950's) which has had an adverse affect on the inland landscape by literally cutting off the flow of nutrients from the sea to high mountain streams in the Rockies (and elsewhere). Without the ocean derived nutrients delivered by the salmon, the forests essentially ended up with all kinds of health issues from inability to feed the fauna in the region who depend on all things fed by the salmon - just about all other species directly or indirectly - to lessening the trees' ability to fight off diseases and pests. Back in 2000 scientists were deeming the salmon a keystone species due to its importance to the inland forests by delivering ocean derived nutrients that could not travel there in any other means. Several individual species of salmon have already gone extinct, the rest are are seriously in peril.

There are many facets to this problem, it took us a couple centuries to make this mess, we may or may not be able to take sufficient remedial action in time to save our own sorry species.

[Bigmack]

4. We've seen this, and it's

ABSOLUTELY MIND-BOGGLING! And batshit scary. Ms Bigmack

[mackdaddy]

5. Emerald Ash Borer, and Asian Longhorn beetle among others killing trees here in Ohio

Nearly all of the Ash trees are dead here in Ohio from the Emerald Ash Borer. Sad to see the six foot plus diameter Ash next to my parents house is finally completely dead. I climbed that tree 50 years ago when I was a kid.

Many of the largest Oak trees on my current 24 acres are dead or dying. More one or two century old trees gone. Many of the local white pines are turning a sickly yellow and dying. Shocking the changes I have seen here in 13 years.

The state will be spraying here in the Hocking Hills for Gypsy Moths this spring. I will have to stay indoors during the aerial spraying.

Some of the Invasive pests here:
http://ohiodnr.gov/insectsanddisease

[mountain grammy]

6. Excellent article..

I've been living on the west side of Rocky Mtn National Park since 1995 and have watched this happen before my eyes. Drought followed by several mild winters, and here we are. It's absolutely devastating, and yet, even here we have climate change deniers. I remember one guy saying the beetles were spread when people burned infested wood in campfires. Super beetle, survives fire!