Study: Half of Calif.’s trees at risk of dying
By Ezra David Romero, Capital Public Radio
Half of California’s vegetation is at a risk of dying because of warming temperatures, according to new UC Davis research.
“We’re seeing that in California just in the last five or six years,” said James Thorne, a research scientist with the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the university. “We had a five-year long drought and then we had double precipitation. In the meantime, we’ve also seen some very large wildfires.”
Even if greenhouse gas-emissions are reduced today, Thorne says around a quarter of the state’s trees and plants will be climate stressed by the end of the century.