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Vegetation Response

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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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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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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Apparent Drought, Extremes and Future Impacts

By Drought, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Heat, Impacts, Myths, rainfall, Shifting Ecology, Temperature, Vegetation Response

One of the general quandaries about current climate change impacts and those with our future climate has been: “how do we end up with drying when precipitation increases with warming as we already see happening and is further projected in the future?” This research from Princeton, University of Southampton and the US Geological Survey does…

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Climate Impacts Happening Now: Westward (?) Migration of Forests

By Drought, Extreme Weather, forest health, Forest Mortality, Impacts, rainfall, Shifting Ecology, The Unexpected, Vegetation Response

A recent article in Atlantic implies climate change to be wrongly viewed as something we don’t yet know much about. This article “American Trees Are Moving West, and No One Knows Why”, is half correct. The authors in the study reported upon reveal the reasons why trees are shifting west (as well as north), and…

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The Beetles: 6,000 Miles of Climate Change — Long Version

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

This is the original long version with much more detail and all of the destinations and forest health descriptions along the 6,000 mile route. The abbreviated  2,000 word version was published on Truthout on February 16, 2016 is here. We were awash for 19 days in a tumultuous sea of mountains and forests, drifting a course through the heart…

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