Drought-stressed Calif. forests face a radical shift
By Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times
Biologist Greg Asner first heard the numbers in April, but they did little to prepare him for what he saw.
The Forest Service had estimated that nearly 12.5 million trees in the state’s southern and central forests were dead. But as Asner peered down upon the same forests from his airplane at 6,000 feet, he saw something far worse.
California’s drought-parched landscape was poised for a radical transformation. Much of the low-elevation forests near Mt. Pinos in the Los Padres National Forest and in Pinnacles National Park were going to disappear if trends continued.
A scientist with the Carnegie Institution for Science, Asner has a practiced eye for forest health, and with instruments aboard his plane that give him X-ray eyes into the foliage, he is able to assess not just dead trees but trees so stressed by the drought that their death is likely.
Not hard to imagine the lake Tahoe basin looking like the Black rock Desert in a few hundred years you can see the changes happening already.
If you don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change- that is a ridiculous statement-I’m increasingly unimpressed with your supposed advanced degrees from East Coast colleges- I call BS
http://www.blackrockdesert.org
Go East young (44 yrs) man/woman…you will see the high water marks on the mountains…go North East and you will find the remnants of the GREAT SALT LAKE that once covered the entire basin….
Your point Blu is what???
P.S. YESS I love P.S.’s:)
Blu…Lake Tahoe is 1,645 ft deep…Not going to dry up in your short lifetime. So stay put and don’t worry.