Massive Changes Likely For UK Forests As Climate Warms Rapidly

[hatrack]

"Corsican pine and walnut trees will replace beech and silver birch in the British landscape as global warming accelerates, a conference will be told next week. Spruce and oak will give way to sweet chestnut and Douglas fir, as the face of the countryside changes, while ash will boom for a time before dying back.

And it will all happen so fast that trees planted now will mature in a very different climate, forestry experts will tell the conference, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) and the Forestry Commission, among others. It has even scheduled a French speaker to describe conditions around Bordeaux, expected to be replicated in southern England as the climate changes more rapidly than at any time since the last ice age.

Climatologists predict that global warming will bring Britain milder and wetter winters, and hotter and drier summers. Trees will quickly feel the difference. Elliott Morley, the environment minister, who is to open the conference at Surrey University, says that the situation "may well be more urgent than we thought".

Experts believe that beech, which is particularly vulnerable to drought, will perhaps be the worst affected of all. Dr Chris Prior, head of horticultural sciences for the RHS, says: "It will be stressed under hot and dry conditions, particularly where it's growing on shallow soil. There's a definite feeling that in 50 to 100 years it won't thrive at all in the south-east of England." Research showed that beech simply stopped growing for several years after the hot, dry summer of 1976, while hundreds of thousands of silver birch trees - another species susceptible to drought - died. Sessile oak is also expected to suffer from lower summer rainfall, while Norway and Sitka spruce are likely to do badly in the south, but better in the north as temperatures rise."

EDIT

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=644287

[NMDemDist2]

1. that's only if the Gulf Stream ocean current doesn't stop.

Otherwise look for aspens, birch and pines if they get that much.....

http://www.scienceline.ucsb.edu/search/DB/show_question.php?key=1116774065&task=category&method=&form_keywords=&form_category=geology&start=

[Warpy]

2. There's likely to be a warmup for a decade or two

Followed by a sharp cooldown that will be permanent, if I remember all the models correctly.

Ten years ago, when those models started to predict the slowdown then diversion of the Gulf Stream, people thought the whole thing was nuts, that it would never happen.

Well, folks, it's starting. It's time for Europe to remember just what it ate during the Little Ice Age, because they're going to have to start growing that stuff again.

[Boomer]

3. A decade or two of warmup, eh?

We'll be lucky if we have that long, considering how much of the North Atlantic current has shut down.

Meanwhile, here in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S., our temps have been running a full 10 degrees cooler than normal for months. Could just be the fluctuations that are to be expected from increased climate volatility. Or maybe it's the beginning of the next ice age. Of course, there's no way to know for sure until enough time has passed to assess the cycles.

Interesting times ahead, either way.

[NNadir]

4. Well, if the climate does change radically in Britain, I hope they fix

the leaky pipe at Sellafield before the roads are covered with ice.

Compared to the leaky pipe at Sellafield, a complete breakdown of the British forests is a very small affair.