I think I try too hard to hold even a semblance of chit-chat in these threads, and it gets me down. I should know to be adaptable like water and let what flows naturally come.
In other news, the wunderground has blogs, too.
Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
Quote:
This week I am at the Community Climate System Model Annual Workshop . It is in Breckenridge, Colorado. In Colorado there has been a lot of discussion in the past few years about the pine beetle or the pine bark beetle. ( Archive Article in Denver Post ). These beetles are attacking lodgepole pines throughout the western United States and Canada. Some have even predicted that all of the lodgepole pine forests could be killed on many millions of acres of land.
There have been many discussions on the relationship of the pine beetle infestation and climate change. The analysis of the relationship of infestations of this type to climate change is very difficult. I give a set of links to primary references below.
When thinking about the impact of climate change on forests, attention is first paid to temperature and water. If the temperature is rising, then it is natural to expect that there will be increased water stress, especially in dry environments. Even if there is an increase in precipitation, the extra evaporation often more than offsets this additional water. With regards to the direct impact of temperature, trees have evolved to grow in certain temperature ranges. In a simplistic view, with small, slow climate change one imagines the range of trees following the climate. Of course, over the next 100 – 1000 years we are looking at fast, large climate change; there is little evidence that the forests can adapt quickly.
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