Detection and Treatment of Forest Disease in the U.S. Forestry during the 1939-2019 Season-of-Runoff Climate Change
“As we continued to fly along, it just kept going. DePinte told NPR that it did not stop for “miles and miles” as he conducts research in the Pacific Northwest.
Since 1947, the U.S. has been conducting annual aerial surveys across the country to monitor the health of trees. Flying up to 2,000 feet in the air, observers scan terrain in a grid-like pattern, analyzing about 30 acres per second, DePinte said. With a tablet, a pen and a trained eye, they are able to spot and diagnose unhealthy trees based on their color, posture and fullness.
In 2019, about 470,000 acres contained dead trees, DePinte said. Fourteen thousand acres in Oregon were identified with fir tree deaths last year, but it was not complete because of the summer fires.
Barsotti stated that trees are an important part of who we are, how we live. “We need to work to have our forests as resilient and sustainable as possible.”
Still, the 2021 aerial survey report said that Oregon’s forests, which make up nearly half the state, have been “pushed to the limit due to climate change.”
A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change earlier this year found that the Western U.S. has been experiencing a “megadrought,” a multidecade dry spell unlike any other period in more than a millennium — in part because of greenhouse gas emissions warming the world.
Loss of the Pacific Northwest Firs: A Big Signpost for Climate Change in the Outskirts of Californian Forests
He said that the trees that had been left were in a better location, and that is how they survived. Maybe they have some kind of genetics that make them more resistant to the elements.
The Forest Service conducted aerial surveys in the Pacific Northwest this year, and they saw the highest mortality rate for firs in history. These conifers are less hardy than other trees in the landscape.
He and his colleagues scanned the slopes from planes several times between June and October, detailing the devastation on digital maps. He knew that this year would be unlike anything he had seen before. The data was first reported by Columbia Insight but dead trees were seen in areas that are more than one million acres. The scientists have called itfirmageddon.
DePinte said the size of this is enormous. “A lot of people out there think climate change is just impacting the ice caps or some low-level island out there, but it is actually impacting us right here in our backyard,” he said. “If this drought continues as climate change keeps on, and we continue ignoring what nature is showing us across the globe—it doesn’t bode well at all.”
Firs like them are struggling to adapt due to an ongoing and recent drought and extreme heat. As the climate crisis goes on, the environment is expected to change. The loss of these trees is evidence that the forests may be going somewhere in the future.
“This is not surprising that this is happening, but to see such a peak within the span of a year—that is concerning,” said Christine Buhl, a forest entomologist with the Oregon Department of Forestry. The forest was affected by the underlying conditions that caused the spike because of timing, duration, and frequency.
“Hot drought is a double whammy for a tree,” she said, explaining that the roots of drought-stressed trees die back, making it harder for them to recover even when water is available. The tree’s water supply is at risk from a lack of moist environment, particularly in growing seasons when precipitation is more plentiful.