Hey Scooter and Judy- Those Aspens, they are dying

[n2doc]

Global warming blamed for aspen die-off across the West
The trees, which were already under duress, are being killed by insects that thrive as the climate changes. Scientists call it Sudden Aspen Decline.



By Nicholas Riccardi
October 18, 2009

Reporting from Paonia, Colo. - From the hillsides of extinct volcanoes in Arizona to the jagged peaks of Idaho, aspen trees are falling by the tens of thousands, the latest example of how climate change is dramatically altering the American West.

Starting seven years ago, foresters noticed massive aspen die-offs caused by parasitical insects, one of them so rare it is hardly even written about in scientific literature. But with warming temperatures and the effects of a brutal drought still lingering, the parasites are flourishing at the expense of the tree, beloved for its slender branches and heart-shaped leaves that turn a brilliant yellow in autumn.

What foresters have termed Sudden Aspen Decline affects more than just aesthetics. Aspen trees provide a rich habitat for birds, elk, deer and other animals. The grasses that sprout under them -- up to 2,000 pounds per acre -- hold water that is needed by metropolitan areas. The trees do not burn easily and create natural firebreaks in forests already ravaged by the pine bark beetle -- another parasite that is thriving because of global warming.

"It's just rolling through the forests," Wayne Shepperd, an aspen specialist at Colorado State University, said of SAD.

more:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-aspen-death18-2009oct18,0,3472413.story


(Maybe, just maybe, if we had spend more time and effort on controlling CO2 emissions this last decade, instead of blowing up people in the middle east, the Aspens would be healthy)

[ccharles000]

1. k/r

[msongs]

2. dead aspens will burn, new species move in, a new natural balance developed. As it has been for

the entire history of the plant kingdom on earth.

Msongs

[HillbillyBob]

4. Yes climate changes. but usually slowly enough that

plants and animals have time to adapt.
What we are doing is making it rapid.

With out the forest cover, there will be less water retention for city drinking supplies, the damp forest floor also helps to keep the rain machine going and the humidity steady. The climate is always in motion, but it does not generally change so drastically that whole forests are killed off.

I witnessed the change in South Florida over the 20 years I lived there from daily summer rain at 3 pm to summer long droughts from draining and paving over the Everglades. There were days when we could not work on construction sites because of the toxic smoke from the Maleleuca and Eucalyptus burning (non native very invasice species planted in the wrong minded idea of drying up the 'Glades which were the life of the state.

With no forest cover and no new rains you start to see desert conditions, look at the Sahara and Gobi deserts they are spreading.

The rain patterns change and areas that used to get rain do not , recall the dust bowl of the 1930s? That can be a real prospect again.

Why is there always someone who is so short sighted as to make thise kind of comment. Is it that you don't or Won't believe we are affecting the climate?

I grew up in WV where they are destroying mountains for greed, you can see the day to day year to year differences in rain, snow, wind and wild life (or lact of). It also pollutes the drinking water by cracking the aquifers and folks are starting to see that their well which they depend on for drinking now has coal dust and sulpher compounds in it. My gradparents farm has been getting water from the same deep spring since 1840s and now is unusable for the sulpher in it. It always had a little but since the mountains are being blown up its totally undrinkable.

[tex-wyo-dem]

5. This is generally true...

But the problem is that climate change this time around is happening at such a rapid pace that balance in many ecosystems is unable to establish. What's happening in the Rocky Mountain west with the pine beetle and now the Aspen die-off basically amounts to desertificationan which will result in negative affects to much of the country.

[havocmom]

3. Those two weasels were the first things I thought of when that news came out

Dead trees, well, one sorta things of the GOP with or without tree species mentioned, but dead aspen = Scooter & Judy for sure.

And, unlike dead men, dead trees DO tell some tales.