Report: Beetle kill alters climate
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published September 24, 2008 at 3:08 p.m.
Updated September 24, 2008 at 11:54 p.m.
As bark beetles denude huge stretches of Rocky Mountain forests, they're altering the very climate of the region - from temperature to rainfall to air quality.
That's the word from Colorado scientists leading a four-year international effort to gauge how trees influence rainfall, temperatures and other aspects of the atmosphere.
The scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder say preliminary computer models suggest that mountain pine beetle kill can lead to temporary temperature increases of about 2 to 4 degrees.
And, the beetle kill stimulates trees to release more chemicals into the atmosphere that worsen air quality by boosting ground- level ozone.
"Forests help control the atmosphere, and there's a big difference between the impacts of a living forest and a dead forest," said Alex Guenther of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a principal investigator on the project.
Huge kills caused by pine beetles, being seen now in Colorado, can alter cloud and rain patterns for a decade or more, he said.
The project will last four years and extend from southern Wyoming to northern New Mexico.
The project is called BEACHON - the Bio-hydro-atmosphere Interactions of Energy, Aerosols, Carbon, H20, Organics and Nitrogen.
Researchers from several Colorado colleges will join colleagues from across the country and from Austria, France and Japan.
Scientists will use instruments mounted on a special airplane, on the ground and on towers 100 feet above the forest canopy.
Plants emit water vapor, other gases and tiny particles. Some of them then rise into clouds, helping form raindrops. Fewer trees mean fewer raindrops.
When forests are denuded, the trees, rather than helping the carbon dioxide-oxygen exchange, emit large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere.
scanlon@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2897
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September 24, 2008
5:31 p.m.
Suggest removal
LeftyLady writes:
Is there anything that we regular citizens can do, or do we just have to sit back and watch our trees and fresh mountain air disappear?
September 24, 2008
5:37 p.m.
Suggest removal
BRM writes:
LeftyLady: Yes there is something you can do!! Vote Democrat!! The oil-rich lobbyists-turned-politicians care nothing of our environment. Only profits and censoring scientific data that PROVES humans are effecting our climate for the negative.
September 24, 2008
9:08 p.m.
Suggest removal
forwhatitis writes:
Don't vote Democrat!!!! It has been proven that my overactive hemoroids have caused people to unexplainably change from the right to the left and want to vote democrat. Please, I'm having them removed and then you will all be sorry!!!!
BTW, I'm so glad that our tax dollars are paying for such important studies. Why don't we just light a match to this crap and get it out of the way so the forests can start regenerating?
September 25, 2008
7:20 a.m.
Suggest removal
socrates writes:
Ironically, it has also been shown that the increases in temperature that we've already experienced have shortened the cycle for beetles to re-appear from two years to one year. So, climate change has pushed more beetle kill and more beetle kill pushes more climate change.
September 25, 2008
9:18 a.m.
Suggest removal
mrpoizun writes:
Aren't the repulsivelican responses to this article typical? Just ignore all findings about pollution damaging our planet! It's just a plot to cause our billionaires to only be able to afford 10 mansions instead of 20!
You'd think repulsivelicans didn't have to breathe air or drink water. Because their policies and programs will guarantee that our grandchildren won't be able to do either.
September 25, 2008
10:41 a.m.
Suggest removal
Mtn__Gator writes:
All these posts are dead wrong. We are the cause of the pine beattle problem. People have been moving futher and further into the mountains and the don't want their homes to burn, which is understandable. But there in lies the problem, naturally occuring fires take these beattle out. As we move to stop mother nature from doing what she does, we cause other problems. There will be only one solution, a fire to take out not only the beattles, but also the all the dead trees. I don't know how many of you have been up in the mountains lately, but there is a massive amount of dead trees from these little guys. Does anyone want to take a guess as to how mother natural will deal with all those trees? That is now the only possible solution. My advise, sell your mountain properties or up your insurance in the affected areas.