Trees have a tipping point

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/335179/title/Trees_have_a_tipping_point

Trees have a tipping point

Amount of forest cover can shift suddenly and unexpectedly

By Alexandra Witze
Web edition : Thursday, October 13th, 2011

Like Coke versus Pepsi, tropical land ecosystems come in two choices: forest or grassland. New research shows these two options can switch abruptly, and there’s rarely any in-between.

If so, then many of these ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to future changes such as rising temperature, scientists say. With just slight shifts in rainfall or other factors, people living in what is now tropical rainforest might suddenly find themselves in scrubland populated by a different mix of plants and animals — where people’s livelihoods might have to change dramatically.

“That transition is not going to happen smoothly,” says Milena Holmgren, an ecologist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. “The evidence is showing there are these big jumps.”

Holmgren and her colleagues describe the finding in the Oct. 14 Science. Another group, from Princeton University and South Africa’s national research council, report similar conclusions in a second paper in the same journal.

…

http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1210657
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1210465

[NickB79]

1. Take a look at N. Africa and the Middle East to see a good example

What is today scrubland and desert used to be palm and cypress forests.

[msongs]

2. people need to quit cranking out so many babies ASAP - look at the Amazon! slash n burn nt

[Gregorian]

3. How dare you propose such a responsible plan!

No, really, I rarely see anyone posting this kind of thinking.

Here it is in a nutshell, for all of those who just can't get a clue-

Resources per capita.

It's what enables the corporations to even be greedy in the first place. We could just skip right over most of what is going on with the OWS stuff, and get right to the heart of the matter. Fewer people means fewer things needed. Less power for corporations. At this point in time I don't give a crap any more. I'm old enough that you all can just figure it out after it becomes obvious to even the most unconscious.

[jimlup]

4. Yet another potential positive feedback...

And we haven't even really solved the CH4 feedback question yet.

[bvar22]

5. Many of The Oak Trees in Central Arkansas (Ouachita Mountains)...

...went Dormant in August in response to the record Heat/Drought.
I feared they were dying, but was reassured that the brown leaves were Dormancy in response to lack of water.

This is NOT a Fall Photo of hardwood Trees.
This photo was taken in High Summer (Mid-August).
At this time of year the Oaks on the far hillside are usually lush, dark Green.
They don't "turn" until Mid-October.

It gets much worse to the west, Oklahoma and Texas.
I don't think they can stand repeated years of this weather.