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Were the Russian trees afflicted by the same disease that hit Alaskan trees?
Were the Russian trees afflicted by the same disease that hit Alaskan trees?
Alcoholism?
Did YOU read the article??
"In Alaska, where the larch were largely devastated by a disease outbreak in the late '90s, vast swathes of forest are becoming inhospitable to the dominant white and black spruce."
Edit:
Does this article ever even SAY this is happening in Siberia? I couldn't find it. This just postulates that it will happen with continued warming...
And I guess it blames the disease that hit Alaskan trees on climate change?
Last edited by Sec24Row7; 03-29-2011 at 01:36 PM.
You don't get it. They blame diseases and pests on global warming too. I remember a few month back someone in here was blaming the pine borers out west on global warming. The fact that there have been pine borers for as long as I can remember (50 years) was considered unscientific and unacceptable argument against that hypothesis.
I guess that post was a capitulation on your part?
Because it is. How is the fact that there have always been pine beetles somehow invalidate the idea that climate change is providing them with better living conditions?
Pine borers require certain rather narrow temperature bands for their reproductive and other lifecycle processes, if memory serves.
Increasing temperatures a smidge made vast swaths of territory open to them that had previously never seen them, exposing tree populations to a new predator that they had no defenses to.
Not dissimilar to the decimation of north american human populations by imported small pox.
It isn't the fact that there have been pine borers or small pox for centuries, but what happens when you open up new ecosystems to those organisms.
Your argument is unscientific and illogical.
"Because there have always been pine borers, then pest outbreaks can't be blamed on global warming".
No one blaming increased temperatures ever claimed that there were no outbreaks or pests before recently.
That is, in essence a strawman argument.
More like an attempt to find some humor. I do that occasionally.
Quite frankly, I'm not sure what your point actually is.
And you're assertion that we have more pine borers because of man caused global warming is ALSO total bull .
As winter temperatures go up and down beetle populations go up and down.
We had seven relatively warm years (good for beetles).
The alarmists were screaming "global warming killing forests!"
THEN we have had 4 years in a row of colder winters (bad for beetles).
*crickets*
Cold winters are good for crickets?
Wait, what? I've read nothing about pine beetle infestation numbers going down because of the weather (the western US winters have not been nearly as cold as the east iirc). I have read about declines in certain areas due to the beetles killing off so many of the trees they don't have enough of a food source to support such a large population but not because of the cold.
Can you provide a link or two?
Just did a quick search.If all the infected acres were plotted on a map of Montana, the beetle epidemic would have touched about 5.6 million acres in the past decade. The outbreak appears to have faded in areas around Helena and Butte, where it is running out of trees. But it's growing around Lewistown and the Flathead Valley.
"It's continuing to move east out of the Big Belts into Little Belts, Snowys, Judiths and Moccasins (mountain ranges)," said Montana State Forester Bob Harrington. "We're seeing entire stands of ponderosa pine hit, and smaller trees we wouldn't have thought susceptible."
But foresters are also seeing some resilience in pine groves where thinning has occurred before beetles reach the area. And it appears 2009's October cold snap slowed beetle progression in some areas, although the effect seems very limited.
The 2010 winter's sub-zero periods probably weren't enough to do any serious beetle damage, because the insects had already hardened up their cold defenses.
http://missoulian.com/news/local/art...cc4c002e0.html
Mountain Pine Beetle Epidemics – Congressional Research Service Report for Congress 2009
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12965052/C...n-Pine-Beetles
Mountain pine beetle epidemics have occurred in lodgepole pine forests for thousands of years. Epidemics lasting 5 to 20 years occur at irregular intervals, affecting large areas and often killing more than 80% of the trees of more than 10 centimeters (about 4 inches) in diameter.
The current mountain pine beetle epidemic in Colorado and Wyoming is extensive, but it is unclear whether the current level is unprecedented. Most researchers note that mountain pine beetle epidemics are known to have occurred in lodgepole pine forests, but that the current epidemic is more extensive than has been seen in the past century. However, one source noted the loss of 15 billion board feet of lodgepole pine timber from mountain pine beetles in Idaho and Montana from 1911 to 1935. Although the current epidemic is extensive, it may be normal and natural. Some researchers have stated: Even though insect outbreaks greatly affect forest ecosystems, they may not be detrimental from a long-term ecological perspective. Such disturbances may in fact be crucial to maintaining ecosystem integrity, a situation ... described as “normative outbreaks.”
And thats a fine viewpoint. It may be natural. It may not. I would most certainly allow for the possibility that this is not directly caused by climate change.
What I also allow for, is that as the temperature rises due to climate change, events like this will occur more often even if this one is not caused by climate change. Also, this outbreak may have occurred with or without climate change but that doesn't mean increased warming has not exacerbated the situation.
But nothing I've read shows that the outbreak is ending due to cold winters.
Also, most of the literature I've read on the outbreak do claim its the largest by a good margin that we know of.
I have no problem with agreeing with the "that we know of" part considering that the transcontinental railroad was only completed 140 years ago.
Forest by Chernobyl 25 years later.
Whether or not warming trends are man-made is not really all that relevant to the science involved.
If warming trends continue, as climate scientists suggest, then we will see infestations in areas of higher elevation, and farther north than we have seen in a long time.
This is apparently what is happening from what I have read.
*No one* is claiming that these infestations have never happened.
*No one* is claming that infestations are not natural.
If you are trying to peg either idea on "global warming believers", that is a distortion. I don't think you are trying to be purposefully dishonest here, but it sure seems that you aren't being overly careful about re-stating others' ideas either.
Meh. If long term trends are for warming, man-made or otherwise, then we will see these things in areas that they haven't been seen in. Time will tell.
None of the links provided actually said that we have had "4 years in a row of cold winters", by the way. These things range over a good chunk of North America, and supporting that statement would require a lot of data that you have not presented yet.
Do you conveniently forget the things I have brought up in the past?
We have had a major change in average solar activity from about 1900 to about 1950. This alone, with the lag time things need to take place in nature might be the cause. This lag time is also seen in the latent energy of then ocean, as it takes several decades for the currents to move from the antarctic to equatorial, equatorial to northern hemisphere, and all the other paths.
Funny think is, tree ring records do so much already to show that anthropogenic warming as the major cause is a myth. The alarmists like to ignore the tree ring proxies for that reason.
Consider this too. Why are all Stradivarius violins make from trees that grew during a certain era. No one to date has been able to copy the violins qualities with any other wood.
Trees do tell a story.
Fify...
Is that a gangster term or something?
Ebonics?
WTF is it?
I assume it means you are undecided on something, like a 50% agreement.
Can we keep the talk to actual job required English so us old fogies understand?
I get it.
Everything is global warming. Even global cooling.
WTF do beetles have to do with this article? The larch trees in Alaska were killed by a DISEASE!!! (I mean its right there in the article)
And wait... Local weather isn't an indicator if global warming (or lack thereof) right? Isn't that what we are told every time someone pasts something like "UK coldest winter in 40 years"...
So how do these pestilences skip their LOCAL weather pattern and get affected by GLOBAL climate change hrrrm?
Last edited by Sec24Row7; 03-29-2011 at 07:40 PM.
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