Over the past year, scientists have studied California’s trees from the air, the ground and even using X-ray technology. Each time, they have arrived at some version of a similar dreary conclusion: The state’s ongoing drought is wreaking havoc on forests, killing millions more trees at each check.
But a study published recently online in the Open Journal of Forestry offered a refreshing and counterintuitive piece of good news. A NASA research scientist found the drought did not stop trees, shrubs and other foliage from regenerating in areas ravaged by wildfires.
“I think a lot of people were expecting that we’d see trees dying even in the Santa Cruz Mountains because the reservoirs there were really low. But they were pretty much undaunted by drought in their growth,” said Christopher Potter, the author of the study. The continued greening in the Santa Cruz Mountains stands in stark contrast to the southern and central Sierra Nevada. Millions of trees have been decimated there by a bark-beetle infestation, which has been exacerbated by drought.
Potter, who works at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, said the research shows that “there’s no way to … just lump all the forests in the state together.” Drought will affect each one differently, and some more than others.
But as the hot summer months loom, Potter said there was also a downside to so much greenery. “We have that much more fire fuel up in the mountains,” he said.
From the Los Angeles Times: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-drought-trees-20160530-snap-story.html