Global warming killing trees in Durango, Colorado

[montana500]

www.wilderness-sportsman.com


JERRY McBRIDE/Herald
Top: Professor Lisa Floyd-Hanna is silhouetted Wednesday along with piñon pines killed by the ips beetle on her property west of Kline. Above: Some stands of piñon pines in the Four Corners have lost 90 percent of their trees to the ips beetle. This section of Floyd-Hanna’s property west of Kline has lost about 50 percent of its trees.
“While we’ve had droughts of this magnitude before, they have never been coupled with such high temperatures,” said Lisa Floyd-Hanna, a professor of botany and biology at Prescott College in Prescott, Ariz.

“Even seemingly small changes in temperatures have had devastating effect on our vegetation,” Floyd-Hanna said. “I have no problem linking the results of our study with global warming.”

[Cactus44]

1. Yeah, well when stuff in Crawford TX starts dying there *might* be a

chance that something happens. Otherwise "there is no proof of global warming!"

[Seansky]

2. I have a place there...Need some history about Mesa Verde and the

theories about the Pueblo people basically dissapearing from that area centuries ago?

I do believe in the Global Warming issues, but I also know the weather history of that area....Wouldn't jump just yet. Way, way back it was actually a forest, Can you believe a high desert area in the Rockies was at one point almost like tropical forest???

[dweller]

3. Will it affect the 'aspens' ? n/t

dp

[OnionPatch]

4. Here in southern California

We have lost so many trees in the national forests to the bark beetles because of drought. I'm not sure what the overall rate was but in some places it was 80% mortality!! In some places, every single pine tree is dead. Some of these trees were a few hundred years old and they made it through everything until now. They're trying to blame it on the fact that these forests have not been logged for so long. Actually part of the problem was fire suppression but scientists believe global warming was a part of the whole thing.

It's so disheartening to watch this stuff happen right before your eyes.