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Forest Mortality

Worst Drought Ever in the Amazon, Caused By Climate Change

By Abrupt changes, Drought, Earth systems, Emissions flip, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Point of No Return, Shifting Ecology, Tipping

Worst Drought Ever in the Amazon, Caused By Climate Change The fifth, 100-year drought since 2005 has struck the Amazon in 2023; this one more extreme than any of the previous events. Each of these droughts except one were more extreme than the previous. These were 2010, 2015/2016, the smaller one in 2020, and the…

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Climate Change Across America Photographic Review PowerPoint 342 slides)

By Abrupt changes, Arctic warming, Beaches coastal, Climate Catastrophes, climate emergency, Drought, Extreme Weather, Flooding, forest health, Forest Mortality, frozen ground, Glaciers, in-depth and Popular Press, Permafrost, Permafrost melt, Presentations, Sea Level Rise, Shifting Ecology, The Unexpected, Tipping, Winter Weather

A Photographic Summary of Climate Change Across America Healthy Planet Action Coalition November 30, 2023 4:40 ET, 3:30 CT, 1:30 PT From Padre Island to the North Slope of Alaska: beach erosion, desert species mortality, fire, debris flow, native insect infestations, forest regeneration failure, extreme cold, epic drought, greening of the Arctic, and permafrost collapse……

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Instagram Filming Logs: Beetles, Fire and Regeneration Failure, September 2023 – Central Rockies

By Abrupt changes, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Photo Tour, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Tipping, Vegetation Response

Instagram Filming Logs: Beetles, Fire and Regeneration Failure, September 2023 – Central Rockies Bruce Melton, ClimateDiscovery.org (Instagram logs with photos and video are below the summary.) Across the Central Rockies from the San Juans to Rocky Mountain National Park, beetle attacks are growing again. The beetles and  impacted trees are changing though. Gone are the…

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What climate change-caused -tastrophe will be next month?

By Extreme Weather, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts

The smoketastrophe in New York City. Image Wikicommons What climate change-caused -tastrophe will be next month? This month’s climate change-caused disaster was the smoketastrophe on the upper east coast. If you have been living under a rock (lucky you), smoke from unprecedented climate change-caused Canadian wildfires was sucked up into a low pressure system that…

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Chihuahuan Desert Walkabout – Desert Mortality from Climate Change

By Abrupt changes, Drought, evolutionary boundaries, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Heat, Impacts, The Unexpected, Vegetation Response

Ocotillo mortality, Big Bend Ranch State Park, Three Dike Hill. The ocotillo in the foreground  succumbed to bark beetles last season. Many more are in the frame, just hard to tell! It’s the desert ~ ~ ~ Chihuahuan Desert Walkabout – Desert Mortality from Climate Change By Bruce Melton We just returned from filming more…

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Sequoias Burn: Ongoing Collapse of the Unburnable

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Emissions flip, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Gigs and Presentations, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, The Unexpected

Sequoias Burn: Ongoing Collapse of the Unburnable By Bruce Melton PE, Director of the Climate Change Now Initiative 2005, ClimateDiscovery.org (Co-published on the Rag Blog for an interview on Rag Radio in Austin, syndicated on Pacifica, September 23, 2022, 2 to 3 pm Central – KOOP 91.7 FM Streaming) The National Park Service says sequoias…

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Giant Sequoias: A Tipping Point

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Climate Catastrophes, climate emergency, climate restoration, Drought, Earth systems, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Legacy Policy, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, The Unexpected, Tipping

The Sequoia Burn Giant Sequoias: A Climate Tipping Point by Bruce Melton PE Follow MeltOn in the field on Instagram See the abridged version on Truthout.org: August 9, 2022. Summary: Up to 13,000 mature sequoias were killed by wildfire between 2015 and 2021, with a total known population of only about 75,500 mature trees. Sequoias…

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Chama Radio, New Mexico – Podcast

By climate restoration, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Emissions flip, evolutionary boundaries, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Gigs and Presentations, Impacts, Podcasts

June 11, 2022 – Mark Glover interview Bruce Melton on Chama Valley Radio, The Eagle, KXJR, New Mexico. Watch, listen or download the interview here (Fast forward about five minutes to get to the interview) Let’s talk about carbon dioxide removal, the was it it is done, natural, the recyclable lime-potash process, amines, mature processes…

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Climate Change Across America – Fall Filming 2021: Beetle Kill in SW CO and Forest Failure at Mesa Verde National Park

By Abrupt changes, Drought, Earth systems, Fire, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, pine beetle

Climate Change Across America Fall Filming Report Southern and Southwestern Colorado Beetle Attack and Forest Regeneration Failure at Mesa Verde National Park We returned to filming after a long covid. No trouble. On the big drive from Texas to the mountains, New Mexico was grand with their indoor mask mandate. Colorado and Texas were about…

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Pier Fire 2017, Black Mountain Grove, Unburnable Sequoias Burned

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Fire, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Photo Tour, Tipping

Pier Fire 2017, Black Mountain Grove Unburnable Sequoias Burned July 2019, Sequoia National Forest – We had been driving the Pier Fire burn for two days. Two days in the black. We camped at the intersection of two logging roads, parking in the middle of the widest spot, as we had only seen two vehicles….

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Permafrost Melt Photo Tour 2018

By Abrupt changes, feedback, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Methane, Permafrost

Permafrost Melt Photo Tour Climate Change Across America 2018 Field Work Already, Alaska has flipped from a carbon sink to a carbon source from permafrost melt and methane emissions. (Commane 2017, science interpreted) Alaska — the entire state, and likely the rest of the north across the entire world —  is now emitting greenhouse gases…

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Climate Change 2018 Review: The Good and Bad, What Have We Learned?

By Abrupt changes, adaptation, Agriculture, Climate Catastrophes, Climate Policy, climate solutions, CO2 Removal and Sequestration, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, forest health, Forest Mortality, Healthy Climate, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Negative emissions, Permafrost, pine beetle, politics, Reports, Scenarios, Solutions, Trump, Uncategorized

Climate Change 2018 Review:  Part 1 – The Bad  by Bruce Melton Climate Change Now Initiative, 501c3 (Link to Article) So much happened in our climate change world in 2018 that we are printing this article in two parts: The Bad, and The Good. We start with the bad, and as bad as it was…

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Climate Change Across America: Summary of Summer Filming Season 2018

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, Flooding, forest health, Forest Mortality, Glaciers, Impacts, Mega-Landslides, Permafrost, pine beetle

Climate Change Across America: Summary of Summer Filming Season 2018 (Our trip log with photos and videos can be found here.) This year was year four of filming with 43,000 total miles of observation to date. In the summer filming season in 2018, for 16,000 miles from Austin to the Arctic via California, we literally…

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Climate Change Across America 2018: Full Trip Log

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, Drought, Extreme Weather, Fire, flood, Flooding, forest health, Forest Mortality, Glaciers, Heat, Impacts, in-depth and Popular Press, Mega-Landslides, Permafrost, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology

Climate Change Across America – Instagram Trip Logs Full Trip Log, Summer Filming Season 2018: June 27 through August 11 – Austin to the Arctic Circle via California. The expedition was 16,199 miles, 46 days, 42 different camps, 2 motels – Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Alaska, Montana, Idaho, Utah,…

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Forest Mortality Exceeds Growth For the First Time

By Abrupt changes, Climate Catastrophes, forest health, Forest Mortality, pine beetle

Our Nation’s Timberlands Flip: Mortality Exceeds Growth by 2:1 Because of climate change, our nation’s forests are dying faster than they are regenerating. This was not supposed to happen for a long, long time. It’s really something that is not even projected, except in very vague terms about ecosystem transformation. But today, already, we see…

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New Evaluation of Climate Models Reveals Abrupt Changes Ahead of Schedule

By Abrupt changes, Drought, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Gulf Stream, ice sheets, Impacts, modeling, The Unexpected

  New Evaluation of Climate Models Reveals Abrupt Changes Ahead of Schedule It’s not the averages that will mess up your hair, it’s the gusts. This work on modeling the unmodelable (Drijfhout 2015) is a couple of years old now, but it gives enormous insight into why it is that “ice cube melt climate science” is…

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What’s the Big Deal With Climate Change?

By Abrupt changes, Climate Culture, Climate Reform, Deniers and Delayers, Drought, Emissions Scenarios, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Messaging, Myths, pine beetle, Psycho, Shifting Ecology, Strategy, The Unexpected, What we can do

What’s the Big Deal With Climate Change? We all understand climate change is trouble. Even a really significant percentage of oil and gas professionals understand. Of a recent poll (2014) of 474 oil and gas industry insiders, 85 percent believed global warming was happening, 58 percent were either very sure or extremely sure, and 57 percent…

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Trump on Global Warming: What’s so Bad About A Little Warming

By Deniers and Delayers, Extreme Weather, Forest Mortality, Impacts, Myths, polar vortex, Shifting Ecology, Temperature, The Unexpected

We have all heard it before: “What’s so bad about a little warming?”  Several things are at play here. First, it’s winter. It’s far colder in winter than the warming we have experienced. So when it’s winter it’s cold, relative to when it’s not winter. But a little warming can’t be that bad, right?Our global…

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Forestkill: Coniferous, Deciduous, Palm and Cactus — Climate Change is Everywhere

By Abrupt changes, Drought, forest health, Forest Mortality, pine beetle, Shifting Ecology, Vegetation Response

Slowly and insidiously, or abruptly and finitely. Forests of all kinds are succumbing to climate change. Mountain forests, city forests, forests in the southeast and the far north. Pine, spruce, fir, oak, maple. Nontraditional forests too; the palms of LA, succulents in the desert. Yes, deserts are at risk too. Deserts as ecosystems are fragile…

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