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California should consider itself lucky if the pine beetle has just hit in 2015 and not really that bad from the pictures. Probably 50% of the trees in Colorado

California should consider itself lucky if the pine beetle has just hit in 2015 and not really that bad from the pictures. Probably 50% of the trees in Colorado are dead, 90% in some places.

RangerScience 10y ago
There's no mention of the pine beetle in the article. He heavily implicates drought and climate change.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Drought makes the trees easier for the beetles to attack, and climate change keeps the beetles alive through the winter.
- camiller 10y ago
  I would think, although possibly wrongly, that if this was drought induced the die off would be more uniform. The pictures look similar to what I saw in Wyoming a decade ago due to pine beetles. Both are likely related, reduced water makes the trees more susceptible to the ravages of the pests?
  - amluto 10y ago
    Reduced water does indeed make pine trees more susceptible to beetles. Pines defend themselves by producing pitch to trap and expel the beetles, and that works better when the trees have enough water.
  - ktsmith 10y ago
    I spent half my childhood in South Lake Tahoe and have lived in the region most of my life. During the 80's and 90's, much of which was a period of drought for the region, beetles were a problem and being actively mitigated by the forestry service. You can go through the national forest all through the sierras and see trees that have been tagged for removal due to beetles. The problem is very severe right now and certainly the worst I can remember. I've got a couple of friends that work for the us forestry service and they say it's so bad they can't keep up with it. Other sources point out that beetle infestation is part of the problem. Local news site for Tahoe specifically: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-tree-deaths-climb-to-record-levels-thanks-to-bugs-drought/ http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-... SF Chronicle on the beetle problem and commenting on the excess wood: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66-million-dead-trees-and-nowhere-8337745.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66...
- Mz 10y ago
  But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace. Maybe it is a different kind of beetle, but the article does mention beetles.
- aftbit 10y ago
  >But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace.
- blackguardx 10y ago
  The pine beetle is native to Colorado. Its population is normally tempered by cold winters. With increasingly warmer winters brought on by global climate change, the pine beetle is left unchecked. It seems like a similar process is playing out in California due to the native bark beetle. Colorado seems to be doing better these days. I think the pine beetle mitigation efforts are showing some progress and I would assume that the trees left standing are maybe naturally more resistant.
adriand 10y ago
> California should consider itself lucky I don't think any place experiencing the destruction of its landscape, the erosion of its environment, and the tragic loss of so many unique, beautiful and valuable places, should count itself lucky simply because it's not as bad as somewhere else.
mathattack 10y ago
Do the trees get replaced? Or come back? I would think this is catastrophic from a global warming point of view.
- DubiousPusher 10y ago
  It's hard to say what will happen here. If the drought subsides, which statistically speaking it should as California's climate trend should "regress to the mean," the ecosystem should recover to some extent. Unless the tree population/ecosystem has been so grossly devastated that the tree it is past returning to a self sustaining point. The current drought in California isn't widely considered to be caused by global warming though there does seem to be some notion that it has been worsened by it. It's too sharp a climate swing to fall along the global warming trend line. The scary thing isn't that this is global warming but that this is just an image of what rapid climate change could do on a much vaster scale if not kept in check somehow.
- nsxwolf 10y ago
  In the scale of a human lifetime this is a tragedy. We see the forests when we are children and we expect to be able to return to them again and again and that the same will be true for our descendants. But go a little farther out, and every asteroid impact above a certain size incinerated every last tree on earth, instantly. Giant ice sheets scraped them off en masse like barnacles. In every case, trees came back. Maybe not the same trees, but trees suited for their new environment. It will be the same for beetles or climate change or whatever comes next.
  - mathattack 10y ago
    My time horizon is "Do we have enough trees sucking carbon out of the air before we cross the point of no return?" and "Can we plant enough trees before we lose all the coastal property?"
    - nsxwolf 10y ago
      We may lose current coastal property - but it will be replaced with all new coastal property. At a terrible cost, yes.
aftbit 10y ago
I visited Rocky Mountain National Park in early September, and it was awful what fraction of the trees appeared to have died off. There were some absolutely gorgeous scenes that must have been truly stunning when they were green. I'm sad I missed seeing them before the pine beetle. My home town of Cincinnati has been suffering from the emerald ash borer. Forests that I played in as a kid are now just empty fields.
M_Grey 10y ago
California, even less than Colorado, cannot afford the destruction of what non-desert habitat it has.
korethr 10y ago
Indeed the pine beetle did quite a bit of damage. Some time ago I was working up in the mountains regularly, and from the US-40/I-70 junction and on up the US-40 corridor, the damage was apparent and got progressively worse the deeper one went into the mountains along US-40. Once past Berthoud Pass, the forest was the opposite of how a healthy one should look: dead brown as far as the eye could see with the occasional patch of living green. I've not been up there in a while, so I don't know how things have progressed -- if they've gotten worse, better, or just shifted about. Sadly, what needs to happen in these areas of pine beetle infestation is what will never be permitted to happen: the forest needs to burn. A large forest fire would kill the beetles and their eggs/larvae, clear out the dead trees to make space for new growth, and fertilize the soil, making it possible for the forest to recover. But with how much beetle-kill there is up there, I don't think a controlled burn would be permitted. It would likely escape containment; there'd be too much risk to persons and property. But the longer such a burn is deferred, IMO, the harder it will be to prevent one, and the more severe it will be. I don't know of a good solution here. Cutting down all the dead trees for lumber might help, but I don't think it can defer a need for a burn forever, nor do I think it will help the forest recover as well as a burn would. I would be happy to be wrong in this regard.
- fred_is_fred 10y ago
  You are wrong in some respects. Where the fire does not affect structures it is allowed to burn. See the Beaver Creek Fire.
Snow_Flame 10y ago
Southern New Jersey has the same beetle problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jersey-pines-trouble-arrives-on-six-legs.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jerse... Alas for the cold nights that would kill 'em all in winter.
- ktRolster 10y ago
  The high sierras have cold nights in the winter.
ktRolster 10y ago
You can see Yosemite Valley this summer: http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg It looks quite beautiful, with the fall foliage, leaves changing color.....then you realize those are evergreens and are changing color because they are dead.
soared 10y ago
...You've completely overstated the beetle problem. It seemed as though it would have massive impact a few years ago, but it didn't. Very specific locations saw a lot of damage, but the overall impact is negligible. http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/ http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-in...

California should consider itself lucky if the pine beetle has just hit in 2015 and not really that bad from the pictures. Probably 50% of the trees in Colorado are dead, 90% in some places.

RangerScience 10y ago

There's no mention of the pine beetle in the article. He heavily implicates drought and climate change.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
Drought makes the trees easier for the beetles to attack, and climate change keeps the beetles alive through the winter.
camiller 10y ago
I would think, although possibly wrongly, that if this was drought induced the die off would be more uniform. The pictures look similar to what I saw in Wyoming a decade ago due to pine beetles. Both are likely related, reduced water makes the trees more susceptible to the ravages of the pests?
- amluto 10y ago
  Reduced water does indeed make pine trees more susceptible to beetles. Pines defend themselves by producing pitch to trap and expel the beetles, and that works better when the trees have enough water.
- ktsmith 10y ago
  I spent half my childhood in South Lake Tahoe and have lived in the region most of my life. During the 80's and 90's, much of which was a period of drought for the region, beetles were a problem and being actively mitigated by the forestry service. You can go through the national forest all through the sierras and see trees that have been tagged for removal due to beetles. The problem is very severe right now and certainly the worst I can remember. I've got a couple of friends that work for the us forestry service and they say it's so bad they can't keep up with it. Other sources point out that beetle infestation is part of the problem. Local news site for Tahoe specifically: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-tree-deaths-climb-to-record-levels-thanks-to-bugs-drought/ http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/california-tahoe-area-... SF Chronicle on the beetle problem and commenting on the excess wood: http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66-million-dead-trees-and-nowhere-8337745.php http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-has-66...
Mz 10y ago
But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace. Maybe it is a different kind of beetle, but the article does mention beetles.
aftbit 10y ago
>But climate change and its horsemen — rising temperatures, drought and bark beetle — are accelerating this pace.
blackguardx 10y ago
The pine beetle is native to Colorado. Its population is normally tempered by cold winters. With increasingly warmer winters brought on by global climate change, the pine beetle is left unchecked. It seems like a similar process is playing out in California due to the native bark beetle. Colorado seems to be doing better these days. I think the pine beetle mitigation efforts are showing some progress and I would assume that the trees left standing are maybe naturally more resistant.

adriand 10y ago

> California should consider itself lucky I don't think any place experiencing the destruction of its landscape, the erosion of its environment, and the tragic loss of so many unique, beautiful and valuable places, should count itself lucky simply because it's not as bad as somewhere else.

mathattack 10y ago

Do the trees get replaced? Or come back? I would think this is catastrophic from a global warming point of view.

DubiousPusher 10y ago
It's hard to say what will happen here. If the drought subsides, which statistically speaking it should as California's climate trend should "regress to the mean," the ecosystem should recover to some extent. Unless the tree population/ecosystem has been so grossly devastated that the tree it is past returning to a self sustaining point. The current drought in California isn't widely considered to be caused by global warming though there does seem to be some notion that it has been worsened by it. It's too sharp a climate swing to fall along the global warming trend line. The scary thing isn't that this is global warming but that this is just an image of what rapid climate change could do on a much vaster scale if not kept in check somehow.
nsxwolf 10y ago
In the scale of a human lifetime this is a tragedy. We see the forests when we are children and we expect to be able to return to them again and again and that the same will be true for our descendants. But go a little farther out, and every asteroid impact above a certain size incinerated every last tree on earth, instantly. Giant ice sheets scraped them off en masse like barnacles. In every case, trees came back. Maybe not the same trees, but trees suited for their new environment. It will be the same for beetles or climate change or whatever comes next.
- mathattack 10y ago
  My time horizon is "Do we have enough trees sucking carbon out of the air before we cross the point of no return?" and "Can we plant enough trees before we lose all the coastal property?"
  - nsxwolf 10y ago
    We may lose current coastal property - but it will be replaced with all new coastal property. At a terrible cost, yes.

aftbit 10y ago

I visited Rocky Mountain National Park in early September, and it was awful what fraction of the trees appeared to have died off. There were some absolutely gorgeous scenes that must have been truly stunning when they were green. I'm sad I missed seeing them before the pine beetle. My home town of Cincinnati has been suffering from the emerald ash borer. Forests that I played in as a kid are now just empty fields.

M_Grey 10y ago

California, even less than Colorado, cannot afford the destruction of what non-desert habitat it has.

korethr 10y ago

Indeed the pine beetle did quite a bit of damage. Some time ago I was working up in the mountains regularly, and from the US-40/I-70 junction and on up the US-40 corridor, the damage was apparent and got progressively worse the deeper one went into the mountains along US-40. Once past Berthoud Pass, the forest was the opposite of how a healthy one should look: dead brown as far as the eye could see with the occasional patch of living green. I've not been up there in a while, so I don't know how things have progressed -- if they've gotten worse, better, or just shifted about. Sadly, what needs to happen in these areas of pine beetle infestation is what will never be permitted to happen: the forest needs to burn. A large forest fire would kill the beetles and their eggs/larvae, clear out the dead trees to make space for new growth, and fertilize the soil, making it possible for the forest to recover. But with how much beetle-kill there is up there, I don't think a controlled burn would be permitted. It would likely escape containment; there'd be too much risk to persons and property. But the longer such a burn is deferred, IMO, the harder it will be to prevent one, and the more severe it will be. I don't know of a good solution here. Cutting down all the dead trees for lumber might help, but I don't think it can defer a need for a burn forever, nor do I think it will help the forest recover as well as a burn would. I would be happy to be wrong in this regard.

fred_is_fred 10y ago
You are wrong in some respects. Where the fire does not affect structures it is allowed to burn. See the Beaver Creek Fire.

Snow_Flame 10y ago

Southern New Jersey has the same beetle problem: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jersey-pines-trouble-arrives-on-six-legs.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/science/earth/in-new-jerse... Alas for the cold nights that would kill 'em all in winter.

ktRolster 10y ago
The high sierras have cold nights in the winter.

ktRolster 10y ago

You can see Yosemite Valley this summer: http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg http://i.imgur.com/FSmwv6g.jpg It looks quite beautiful, with the fall foliage, leaves changing color.....then you realize those are evergreens and are changing color because they are dead.

soared 10y ago

...You've completely overstated the beetle problem. It seemed as though it would have massive impact a few years ago, but it didn't. Very specific locations saw a lot of damage, but the overall impact is negligible. http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-insects-diseases/mountain-pine-beetle/ http://csfs.colostate.edu/forest-management/common-forest-in...