Lots of Ink: The trees of the American west are dying faster – even where beetles and fires are not the reason
A press teleconference, at least five press releases, a big set of pictures, and publication in Science Magazine helped boost coverage of a story that’d likely be news in any case: the forests of America’s west are slowly thinning almost everywhere that scientists have looked. At least, wherever a team from the US Geological Survey, US Dept. of Agriculture, and several universities found data in “non-managed” which means wilderness forests it almost always showed a rise – on average a doubling – in the last half century in the death rate. It’s happening at low elevations and high, and among many species. Drought, heat stress, shorter rainy seasons, less snow, pests, and other factors consistent with climate warming are the suspects, it says here. In most plots “recruitment,” or in plain English appearance of new seedlings, now falls short of mortality. The basic look of the landscape is changing even where far from farms, ranchland, and cities. This, one thinks, is how the Anthropocene, the (unofficial – for now) epoch of human-caused geological change, takes over from the post-glacial Holocene.
This is a good chance, one further thinks, for reporters to ask in follow ups what’s next, what new species might come in, what are some plausible new quasi-equilibria for landcover? How will wildlife react? One hears, for instance, that the classic sage brush landscape of the Great Basin might shrink radically, that junipers in many places are spreading, etc. What’s that about.? How about saguaro? So many angles to pursue.
Stories:
- Arizona Republic – Shaun McKinnon: Old trees die too fast in hot West / Study warns of ecosystem devastation ; The link actually goes to the Detroit Free Press which picked it up. It gave it that terrific hed but trimmed and rewrote the piece a bit (or used an early verson) ; here’s the home paper’s full story.
- Los Angeles Times – Bettina Boxall : West’s trees dying faster as temperatures rise ;
- NYTimes – Mireya Navarro : Environment Blamed in Western Tree Deaths ; Oddly ambiguous culprit in the hed, but second graf is clear; heat and drought and the second quoted source says it’s probably global warming.
- Seattle Times – Michelle Ma : Northwest tree die-off likely due to warming trend, study says ;
- Washington Post – Juliet Eilperin : Study Ties Tree Deaths To Change in Climate ;
- Time Magazine – Eben Harrell: U.S. Trees Dying at Alarming Rate ; Hmm. Being a literalist here about metaphor in this story’s lede. Dunno if forests are really like “America’s giant lungs soaking up masses of carbon dioxide”. One, that’s the opposite of what lungs do. Two, mature forests are pretty much in equilibrium with the atmosphere.
- HealthDay News (via Wash.Post)- Steven Reinberg : Old-Growth Forests Dying Off in U.S. West ; HealthDay?
- New Scientist – Catherine Brahic : Tree deaths double across western US ;
- AP – Jeff Barnard : Study: Western forests dying at increasing rate ; Filed, one notices, from the well-forested but arid intermountain west, in Grants Pass, Oregon.
- Reuters – Maggie Fox : Drought, heat killing trees in western N.America ;
- AFP: Global warming doubles tree deaths in western US: study ;
- San Jose Mercury News – Hadley Leggett : Scientists say global warming may be killing trees in West twice as fast as usual ; Interesting heds on some, like this one – most outlets don’t say it’s global warming, but just warming, or regional warming, a warming trend, and such.
- Scientific American – Katherine Harmon : Out on a Limb: Global Warming May Be Killing Old-Growth Forests ;
- Nat’l Geographic – Brian Handwerk : U.S. Old-Growth Forests Withering With Warming ; Includes a well-shaded account of possible outcomes, reasons.
- San Francisco Chronicle – David Perlman : Trees dying in the West at record rate ;
- Science News – Susan Milius : Everyday tree deaths have doubled / In past 50 years, apparently healthy forests have started losing trees faster, possibly because of climate change ; This one subtly captures a sense of quiet peril tip-toeing in behind us.
- Canwest News Services (via Vancouver Sun) – Margaret Munro : Rate of tree death speeding up: Study ; Starts with unusual vignette lede from a BC coastal rainforest, mentions the colossal die-offs in BC and Alberta lodgepole pines due to beetle infestation – and cites the US as a model of old growth forest respect. ;
- Corvallis Gazette-Times – Kyle Odegard : Is climate change killilng old-growth trees ; for Odegard, near Oregon State U, this is a local story – it might, one thinks, have benefited from a bit more color or profile or vignette to describe his primary source’s field research or other specific role. But it includes an important point: this could just be the beginning of the change ;
- Could do lots more…
Grist for the Mill:
USGS Press Release ; Oregon St. U. Press Release ; U. Colorado Press Release ; Northern Arizona U. Press Release ; U. Washington Press Release (pic source) ;
-CP
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