Ravenous populations of mountain pine beetles in Canada's forests are contributing significantly to climate change through killing off large numbers of trees, according to a study in the journal Nature. So far, the beetles have killed trees in over 50,000 square miles of forests in western Canada, and hundreds of thousands of square miles in the western United States. "When trees are killed, they no longer are able to take carbon from the atmosphere. Then when dead trees start to decompose, that releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," said study coauthor Werner Kurz. The study estimates that by 2020, beetle-killed trees in Canada could release some 270 megatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. "This is the kind of feedback we're all very worried about in the carbon cycle -- a warming planet leading to, in this case, an insect outbreak that increases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which can increase warming," said Andy Jacobson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
source: Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse
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Comments
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wackatalpidae Posted 3:35 am
24 Apr 2008
net carbon fixation
evergreens won't grow in warmer climate anyway
welcome to the homogecene (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/378212)
all that mixing between continents will lead to a new world order
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catman Posted 6:05 am
24 Apr 2008
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lslynes Posted 2:47 am
28 Apr 2008
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mtvyfan Posted 1:29 am
29 Apr 2008
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wiscidea Posted 3:07 am
29 Apr 2008
"Natural controls of mountain pine beetle include woodpeckers and insects such as clerid beetles that feed on adults and larvae under the bark."
and
"In general, MPB prefers forests that are old and dense. Managing the forest by creating diversity in age and structure with result in a healthy forest that will be more resilient and, thus, less vulnerable to MPB."
This brings to mind "conservatives" who make fun of ecologists and efforts to preserve threatened species no one but ecologists or other scientists have ever heard of. Investment in protecting the species that consume pine beetles might have been more financially responsible than allowing nature to go to hell in a hand basket and then praying that the free market will fix everything. I'm sure someone complained about jobs being lost, but how many jobs will be there when the natural forests are completely devastated?
What I'm wondering about now is how many economically valuable species -- though "conservatives" might consider them useless -- that prefer open forests and eat pesky critters like pine beetles are being driven to extinction because of decades of suppressing natural fires. I'm sure someone has the answer. And I hope -- hope is apparently all we have left as a natural resource in the good old USA -- current management of federal land favors the natural pattern of old and new growth in forests and grasslands.
A responsible "conservative" government interested in preserving our natural resources, preserving jobs, economic growth, and national security would fund the research necessary for understanding every element of natural ecological systems and pass appropriate laws so we can preserve the whole for all citizens, especially those not yet born.
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