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One Third of California's Trees Are Dead (sfgate.com)
"There are about 21 million acres of trees spread across California's 18 national forests, and the latest figures show 7.7 million of them -- more than one-third -- are dead." An anonymous reader quotes the San Francisco Chronicle:
California's lingering drought has pushed the number of dead trees across the state past 100 million, an ecological event experts are calling dangerous and unprecedented in underlining the heightened risk of wildfires fueled by bone-dry forests. In its latest aerial survey released Friday, the U.S. Forest Service said 62 million trees have died this year in California, bringing the six-year total to more than 102 million.
Scientists blame five-plus years of drought on the increasing tree deaths -- tree "fatalities" increased by 100 percent in 2016 -- but the rate of their demise has been much faster than expected, increasing the risk of ecologically damaging erosion and wildfires even bigger than the largest blazes the state's seen this year.
An ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey says that on the bright side, this gives scientists a good chance to study how trees die.
Scientists blame five-plus years of drought on the increasing tree deaths -- tree "fatalities" increased by 100 percent in 2016 -- but the rate of their demise has been much faster than expected, increasing the risk of ecologically damaging erosion and wildfires even bigger than the largest blazes the state's seen this year.
An ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey says that on the bright side, this gives scientists a good chance to study how trees die.
They voted for Clinton, 'nuff said. DPRC (democratic peoples republic of California)
This is what happens when you ignore the environment and call it "Chinese bullshit", maybe when Florida is underwater and California is a desert wasteland thel USA will take it seriously.
until then enjoy the fruits of your labor !
Next up: lung cancer causes smoking!
Wingus, Dingus! Listen up!
Two thirds of them are alive. Just FYI.
It happens when you're a numpty cunt of an attack helicopter who demands almond milk.
There is no drought in California; there's a bunch of daft asshaberdashers spilling California's life's blood into the desert sand for shits and giggles and Holistic Food Goodness(tm).
As long as Nestle is still getting their water, who cares if the trees gets theirs.
Dead makes them lumber.
How many trees are normally dead? There are lots of dead trees in any forest.
It's interesting that these reports are always released on rainy days (Which are pretty rare in SF actually)
Yes if you go up to Mt. Lassen it really probably is 1 in 3 trees. Certainly 1 in 10. If anything though, this is natural selection in progress; the only way to produce drought-resistant species is to have a serious drought, a big fire to clear out all the dead species, and then re-seed them with the drought resistant ones. If anything this is a good, big step forward for California over the long term in destroying the less viable/invasive species.
moox. for a new generation.
I am going to support them financially by buying as much almonds as I can.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Why are we subsidizing diaper pin wearing children in college, that should really be in kindergarten. Hot chocolate, play dough, coloring books, etc. Sheesh, sounds like kindergarten. And they want free college, give me a break. Get a life and grow the hell up.
papers get printed
trees may be extinct
like the elephant
I think this is only counting the trees still standing, they forgot to count the ones already logged.
It is interesting that you appear retarded while sharing your thoughts on what appears to be a mass scale extinction event. Because after trees, everything else follows.
Do us all a favor. Stop posting horseshit. Shut off your PC and go read a book or a hundred.
If anything though, this is natural selection in progress
Funny, that's what a lot of us were thinking when you elected Trump.
If you let Nestle pay just $524 to steal 36 million gallons water per year, drought may be the result, indeed.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-36161580
Seriously, they need to start desalinating ocean water and pumping it in-land 100-200 miles. If they did that, then the river water that they steal from truly needing states, can be better used by the ORIGINAL states, along with the trees in their areas.
They just need a hug. That should be no problem in California. ;)
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Pump roots out of the ground with gas and hot-liquid-mineral(s).
If I'm reading this correctly, then:
2016 - 62mil
2015 - 31mil
2010-14 - 9 mil
I'm not sure this is 'much faster than expected' so much as 'Holy Crap we have a problem'.
As a non-biologist I'd tend to assume that:
1. Fires are going to get ugly when all that new dead biomass starts to dry out in a year or so.
2. Mycorrhizal nets are going to be stunted, probably exacerbating the situation.
“It’s not beyond the pale to suggest that this is a pretty unprecedented event in at least recent history,”
It's not entirely silly written backward like that. Trees transpire a lot of water from the ground into the air, where it later falls as rain downwind (or uphill, where it can then fall as rain (or snow, becoming snowpack) and feed rivers that flow back upwind, to repeat the cycle.)
Not enough to account for the drought, though. But nonzero nonetheless. B-)
Also, grass would do it far more than trees. (Grass evaporates six times as much water per acre as a lake surface - or swimming pools.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The FRANKENTRUMP monster declares that there is no global warming and that the dead trees are a conspiracy brought on by liberals and evil Hillary actually paid many tree to die just to embarrass Trumpenstein.
The summary doesn't mention it, but a huge factor is the bark beetle infestation going across California right now.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Southeastern forests in the US are being turned into pellets, shipped overseas to Europe, and burned in converted coal plants with objectively worse emissions than coal. The greens have the gall to classify this as "clean energy" and along with hydro it comprises the bulk of "renewable energy". Perhaps California can get in on the action; Japan needs to fuel all of its new coal plants, after shuttering their carbon-free nuclear fleet. The Pacific Ocean is a bit bigger, but advocates of "renewable energy" are rarely inconvenienced by facts, or concerned about actual ecological impact. All that matters is the "renewable" label, and closing nuclear plants which are reliably generating enormous amounts of genuinely clean energy. Addressing climate change is clearly not a priority for those who insist on excluding the most effective option above all else.
Well most populous areas of CA would be a desert wasteland if it were not for civil engineering. Maybe ought to let it revert it it's natural environment.
The dying trees are in areas with naturally occurring forests, in regions above 5,000ft elevation that have local water sources. In the North and the South.
There are invasive non-indigenous inspect species that are killing large swaths of California forest. Its not just drought problem.
It's weird how ther glossed over that fact
More than 1% of nuclear power reactors have exploded. Welsh farmers were burying radioactive sheep 25 years after Wormwood. TMI release of Xenon didn't count because it's "chemically inert"
Those insects are taking root strongly because the trees have been under significant stress for years due to...
you guessed it: drought!
Only I can judge you.
"Scientists blame five-plus years of drought on the increasing tree deaths"
The lack of water might be the ultimate cause of death, but the ROOT cause is that which causes the drought, and that is Manmade Climate Change.
that would be because heat-stressed trees are much more vulnerable to bark-beetle infestation
Only I can judge you.
If I have to hear global warming without scientific evidence one more time...
http://saveie6.com/
It could be all the toxins in the geo-engineering going on.
http://naturalsociety.com/chem...
What this anti-drought liberal activists DON'T tell you is that 2/3rds of the tree deaths were SUICIDES. Typical liberal bias.
California wants to leave the USA. Who gives a fuck about what happens to them? We should stop giving them Federal money NOW.
You seem to be taking a very large bet that natural selection can work that quickly, and not over the millennia others might expect it to require. Trees, as opposed to shrubs, also take a fair while to grow, and they won't grow very fast is there isn't much water about.
...set to continue posting articles with hyperbolic, fact optional, emotion engaging headlines.
Those insects are taking root strongly because the trees have been under significant stress for years due to... you guessed it: drought!
I recall insect problems from years before there were drought problems. I'm sure drought complicates things but things were not healthy before the drought.
Hey females, listen up, at this stage you can leave your prison cell to go plant a tree. For the area, maybe a orange tree is appropriate.
Yes - agricultural water use accounts for about 75% of the water usage in Ca. However the trees aren't dying from rivers being sucked dry. They're dying from no rain.
..........FULL STOP.
I live in the California Sierras with 100' foot Pondarosa Pines in my backyard. I fly and drive all around. I'm seeing a few dead trees, but nothing like 1/3.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Hey now that's uncalled for; one can discuss climate change without resorting to hysterics without being labeled a trump supporter. I've actually been to the majority of the national forests in California this year so I feel entitled to my opinion and observations of the forests.
moox. for a new generation.
Dry rot affects 99% of the trees in california. Most of the state is somewhere between desert and chapparral with wooded areas past the bay and along the coast. Bugs come with that. Added trees artificially, just worsens the problem when sampling.
The politicians (in Europe) declared wood pellets to be green renewable energy.
The "greens" think it's stupid.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
It's interesting that these reports are always released on rainy days (Which are pretty rare in SF actually)
As mentioned in the summary, the report was released on Friday.
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/usa/san-francisco/historic
No rain in SF that day, apparently. You were saying something?
the problem of drought conditions is the rain clouds are not getting to the mountains as snow. instead, some U.S. Air Force sciencetards thought it useful for cities to save water money by deploying chemtrails for the rain to fall on cities and thus backto sea that little reaches water table. not to mention mismanaged gardens tgat lack thick organic topsoil known by permaculture style of drought tegion horticulture. then tge citiesdeforest theirselvesby giving management "landscapers" a pay by tge quota of how much the organic wastebin is filled with unnecessary organic tgat reduces shade for grasses and ledser trees. but is ok, because useless eaters get billedby porkbelly council members.
If droughts were a regular feature in that part of the world, then THE FUCKING TREES WOULDN'T BE DYING FROM IT. They would have already evolved to deal with it. But species that are NATIVE to the afflicted regions are dying off IN DROVES. That means they are NOT adapted, which implies that such events are rare at best, hence why they are DYING.
No, it's not a good thing.
~X~
Natural selection works through small increments.
When there is significant environmental change; there is no time for adaptation and things tend to die off.
So you are actually witnessing a very special event; not seen since the age of dinosaurs.
Please enjoy the show!
This one is called: The Anthropocene Extinction.
Idiot pathetic naysayer
'The transit of an air mass containing radioactive gas released from the Three Mile Island reactor was recorded in Albany, New York, by measuring xenon-133. These measurements provide an evaluation of Three Mile Island effluents to distances greater than 100 kilometers. Two independent techniques identified xenon-133 in ambient air at concentrations as high as 3900 picocuries per cubic meter. The local gamma-ray whole-body dose from the passing radioactivity amounted to 0.004 millirem, or 0.004 percent of the annual dose from natural sources.'
There you go. Sorry for the actual fact check, but yes, the release Xenon could have had the massive net effect of increasing your normal background radiation exposure by an extra 21 minutes over a year..
Truly horrific!
Oh, and you need to look up the meaning of the word 'exploded' because your definition seems rather... odd.
Not to mention your use of 'wormwood'? which I can only assume means you are a religious nutcase, and using that to refer to the BS biblical 'end of the world' scenarios such nutjobs seem to like to claim every little thing that happens is? If so you need to be more clear..
Not trying to troll here - but maybe the metrics are wrong?
Pro tip - The trees are the living ones.
The dead ones are no longer trees...
Maybe "dramatic increase in the wild firewood population in California" would be just as accurate without being alarmist?
In other words, you don't give a shit, because you don't feel it touches you personally, am I right? It is easy - or, probably the modern word is 'facile' - to pull the pocket-philosophy out; I can do that too: 3000 Americans were killed in the twin towers in New York? Well, that's just life. Your whole family was wiped out by MRSA? Well, that's just nature's way. How am I doing so far? I think it sounds stupid - it sounds like somebody who is too intellectually lazy to make an effort.
Geoengineering anyone?
To be fair, actually, most of the trees dying in California are not natives, at least not in that location. Most of the places with lots of pines on them now used to be full of something else. For instance, in Lake County, CA the land was covered with redwoods up to the ridgeline between here and hopland, and oaks thereafter. First, there was a lot of slash and burn to create cattle land. Then, the federal government paid $1 for each black walnut tree planted, as an inducement to the settlers to destroy the oaks that the natives depended on for food. The walnuts have never been an economic benefit to the region, although some people grafted a more desirable variety onto the stumps of some of their trees and have been able to make a little money.
Droughts are a regular feature in California, and the trees are dying from it because they are in areas where they're not supposed to be, and because redwoods dramatically alter climate, and they are missing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
TMI was a joke compared to Chernobyl and Fukushima.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I've actually been to the majority of the national forests in California this year so I feel entitled to my opinion and observations of the forests.
And I live in Kelseyville, pear capital of the USA, which is why I feel entitled to my opinion about pears. Because I've been near pears, clearly I am an expert on them and you should listen to what I say.
Actually, all I have to say about pears is that I've never successfully bought a pear pie at the festival because it is such amateur hour, but literally everything in Lake County is half-assed or less. You should see our "renaissance faire", ugh. I've only seen pictures because it looks like someone went to the spandex and polyster faire in AZ and brought the idea home.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't bring those negative vibes!
TMI was a joke compared to Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Not to mention that Fukushima is STILL HAPPENING. It melted down (which tepco knew but covered up for months) and water is known to be flowing out which means it's flowing into the ocean, and we have little to no idea how much radiation is being released.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
the soul of California is dead.
Isn't the prevention and the stop of wildfires the reason why there are so many dead trees?
As a kid I used to learn that wildfires happen every x years on average, depending on the region. California is rather dry so a wildfire is bound to happen every x years. When the forest is burned down, all dead trees are recycled and the scorched earth is fertile ground to let a new forest grow. Humans prevent and stop wildfires and intervenes in the natural tree recycle system.
So instead of only pointing to the excessive use of water shouldn't they also point to the fact that wildfires aren't allowed to recycle dead material? What effect do regular wildfires have on the weather or even local climate or the ground water table (like less dead trees is more rain forest like behavior)?
The nucklehead president says there is no drought, so these people must be lying.
Let me just throw something in here; a regular feature of forests are periodic burns. Could it be since people have been fighting these burns that an imbalance has arisen that is also causing hard times for these forests? Not to mention planting trees that aren't normally found in these areas or maybe at the number they are since they've been nurtured by an outside force?
This is like how evolution is suffering as we keep people alive who would have normally have passed on due to flawed genetics in their pre-mating years.
It's not as if it has to happen on a schedule and it's a lot cheaper than nuclear. It has no exotic parts and no exotic materials that get into a drinking water supply, like radioisotopes.
Also you don't need specialist labor.
Some studies have highlighted the idea that the last 150 years or so in California have been unusually wet. It is unfortunate that Californians think what they've seen for their entire lifetimes is normal for the area, when the reality appears to be that is the aberration and that mega-droughts centuries long are actually the norm.
Yes, AGW/Climate Change is certainly having an impact, too, but a temporarily greened desert is still a desert.
You all wanted millionaires and billionaires to pay more taxes, and California has more than its fair share of those. I get it--if I was a billionaire, I'd probably like to live in an area of the country with socal's weather, too.
We could fix that problem by forcing some millionaires and billionaires to live in Mississippi, etc. You know, to even things out so that all the states have a fair share of millionaires and billionaires.
Or firewood
If droughts were a regular feature in that part of the world, then THE FUCKING TREES WOULDN'T BE DYING FROM IT. They would have already evolved to deal with it. But species that are NATIVE to the afflicted regions are dying off IN DROVES. That means they are NOT adapted, which implies that such events are rare at best, hence why they are DYING.
No, it's not a good thing.
The problem with that theory is that the tree mix in California is not what it historically used to be. California used to be mostly Black Oaks and other deciduous trees intermixed with some conifers - douglas firs, etc. At least, that was the case in the Sierra Nevada foothills and lower elevations. If you go there now, you'll rarely see any oak trees - they were all cut down in the 1800s. The conifers were blocked out by the oaks and, since oaks take up more space, there were fewer trees in the same land area. Without the competition for space, the conifers really took over as they grow much more quickly than an oak.
It's not a theory. It's a hypothesis. As much as I hate to nit pick it's bad nomenclature that makes Joe Sixpack feel that he has a leg to stand on about what is what in science with all kinds of crazy ideas because "it's just a theory."
SolyentGreen will be People.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
This is why I come to slashdot, for the insightful commentary by actual experts.
You are a tree doctor? Or what do you call them, tree surgeon?
Right?
If you see a tree, let it have your pee.
Your link doesn't say that most of the corn is used for ethanol.
"Corn can be used for food as corn flour, cornmeal, hominy, grits or sweet corn. It can be used as animal feed to help fatten our hogs, chickens and cattle. And it can be turned into ethanol, high-fructose corn syrup or even bio-based plastics."
"Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol)"
Which means more is NOT used for biofuels. Moreover, biofuels was not what the tree huggers asked for: it was asked for by the farmers who grow corn. And the corn for biofuel doesn't have to be high quality, either.
In a few years - Godzilla.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Protip, this is why California is having so many fires.
Sensible logging would help reduce fires, but get rid of some of these dead trees.
But logging is a ZOMG NO NEVER from extreme environmentalists, so instead we have ever bigger fires. Nature will reduce the dead trees with fires if we don't with logging.
it's not the drought it is radiation. as if the memory of the prior droughts has been erased .. there were no mass deaths of plant life as I see here in Calif now. the oldest Oaks and Redwoods now dead are proof to me, we are being irradiated. it is in the air and in the rain. we are screwed.
slow death so no one notices. higher rates of cancer will surely be the result. it has affected new births of people and pets.
large scale infant deaths april 2011. dog's litters are small if they even have a litter. Go ahead and diss me it won't change a thing.
you need a " the walking dead trees" tv show.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The politicians (in Europe) declared wood pellets to be green renewable energy. The "greens" think it's stupid.
Yes, "greens" like Steve Goreham, Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the book "The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania"
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/09/wood-burning-power-plants-misguided-climate-change-solution/
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The problem is that many global warming proponents have made it all but impossible to disagree with any part of their talking points without being shouted down as a denier.
I think the correct term is undocumented.
The SF Chronicle has degraded from a real newspaper to a poorly edited regurgitation in many cases. This seems to be a case where the author of the piece didn't actually check their facts.
I believe the "third" quote is just an error:
"There are about 21 million acres of trees spread across Californiaâ(TM)s 18 national forests, and the latest figures show 7.7 million of them â" more than one-third â" are dead. "
This quote is linked-cited to their other paper site, sfchronicle, and that article does not give those same numbers.
The sfchronicle article links to this http://www.fs.fed.us/sites/default/files/DROUGHT_book-web-1-11-16.pdf
The New York Times version of the article does NOT make the same "third are dead" claim and it links to a USDA release:
http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2016/11/0246.xml&contentidonly=true
That also does not make the "third are dead" claim.
As a non-professional forest person in California, the claim that a third of forested acres are "dead" or that a third of all trees are dead is demonstrably absurd.
I think someone slipped a digit somewhere and sfgate's editing is no longer good enough to trust anyone checked it. If anyone happens to see any original source making this claim, please let me know.
Straw man alert. He never said he was an expert, only that he has an opinion and he has many recent observations.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Maybe so, but we've been in a drought condition since at least 2007.
Only I can judge you.
Thankfully, thanks to our leader President-elect Donald Trump, we now know that this is all a hoax caused by China to make us doubt in America's greatness.
Err, no. The scenario you describe would re-seed the area with more fire-tolerant strains of tree, not more drought tolerant ones. You want an extended drought during which only drought-tolerant saplings can mature, then sufficient normal-ish weather for that cohort of drought-tolerant trees to mature, then a fire which takes out the drought-tolerant and drought-susceptible trees at more-or less similar rates, after which the increased number of the drought-tolerant trees would dominate the seed load from which future generations will grow. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Your hypothesis doesn't appear to be supported by the evidence. The Forest Service webpage http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/... indicates that the areas of greatest die-off are in the mountains rather than in farmland.
Your hypothesis doesn't appear to be supported by the evidence. The Forest Service webpage http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/... indicates that the areas of greatest die-off are in the mountains rather than in farmland.
You are surprised to find that there are more pines in a pine forest than there are in the middle of a farm plot? Welcome to Slashdot, you should apply for an editor job.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hey now that's uncalled for; one can discuss climate change without resorting to hysterics without being labeled a trump supporter. I've actually been to the majority of the national forests in California this year so I feel entitled to my opinion and observations of the forests.
Straw man alert. He never said he was an expert, only that he has an opinion and he has many recent observations.
He implied that he had a useful opinion because he had been to a bunch of national forests. That depends very much on what he did while he was there. It takes more than visiting to have something useful to say.
One is certainly always entitled to one's own opinion. I, for one, feel everyone is entitled to my opinion. Of course, they are also entitled to pick it apart. If they're smarter than I am, I may learn something when that happens.
That used to happen here on Slashdot quite a bit, which is a big part of how I got hooked on the place. I love learning. Stop me when I'm wrong, but be damned sure I'm wrong. At that point, I will be fascinated.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Your response is inconsistent with your previous assertion. I conclude, therefore, that you're trolling.
Your response is inconsistent with your previous assertion.
Really? Why don't you point to the place in the narrative at which you lost track, so I can fix it for you and show you where you're moving the goalposts? I'm not going to play a guessing game. You could have become confused at any point.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"