At the risk of arousing climate-change skeptics, I’d like to invite both believers and skeptics to a talk Thursday, Jan. 30, at the Newton Free Library at 7pm, by BU associate professor Dr. Pamela Templer, who will speak about the effect of regional and local climate change on tree health in both urban and forest settings. Her particular focus has been not hotter summers, which is most people’s idea of global warming, but the rise in average winter temperatures and reduced snow cover, and how that impacts what’s underground, from tree roots to microorganisms to water quality.
Yes, I hear you thinking, “but it’s been so cold this winter.” True, but how much snow is on the ground now? Cold without an insulating snow cover is more damaging than cold with snow cover. And remember the warmer late winter with little snow a couple of years ago? That can dry out tree roots. Insect ranges seem to be expanding. Will native ranges of trees shift northward? Perhaps my tree favorites, tulip trees and sweetgums, native up to the mid-Atlantic area, will eventually not just grow here, but sprout from seeds here. But at that point, sugar maples might not.
Happily, there is no extreme weather in the forecast for Thursday, so hope to see you at the Library.
Here’s a interesting video giving some history about trees and climate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d260CmZoxj8
Hoss, neat video! Didn’t know that trees could get ‘the bends’ if they hadn’t adapted.
I’m hardly an expert on climate change although I’ve been working on it at the margins since I helped put together air quality trends reports at EPA in the early 80’s. Nothing the models and studies said then have been that much off the mark.
The first thing I learned was that it would be always necessary to distinguish between “climate change” which is a long range thing and weather which will vary extremely on a day to day basis even if the overall trends in temperature are up. Cold snaps like this may or may not be part of climate change trends, but it doesn’t alter the trends no more than all of the summer heat wave records are necessarily due solely to climate change. It’s the overall trend and that is upward and disturbing.
I see types of vegetation and ground cover that simply weren’t here 60 years ago, let alone all the invasive species (plant and animal) that have migrated to or been released in this area.
Love that video Hoss!
Here’s a timely (today’s paper) and interesting view of climate change from the blog of the Globe weatherman David Epstein, “Does this year’s snow and cold mean that the climate is or isn’t changing?
Weather Wisdom
Prof Templer is a great scientist breaking ground on the important but often overlooked research question of winter climate change. I’m proud to be her colleague. I won’t be able to make her talk, but highly recommend going!
Terry, interesting Weather Wisdom blog. Nathan, sorry you can’t make it. Do you have an opinion on the question of whether water vapor matters, mentioned in the Weather Wisdom section on alternative energy?
@Julia: The president told us last night that “climate change is a fact.”
No need to hedge your bets the next time you write a headline.
Greg,
You actually believe what Obama says? I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’d like to offer to sell you.
Dr. Templer gave an interesting presentation last evening, particularly for those of us that had never thought much about the impacts of winter weather on climate change. A lot of factors discussed, but one central problem for New England that caught my ear related to the actual affects of the drop in the amount of snowfall over the past 60 years because of rising temperatures here. What’s missing generally is a drop in the amount of early winter season snow. Snow serves as insulation for sensitive trees like sugar maples that have relatively shallow roots. Less snow makes them susceptible to deep freezes like the ones we have been experiencing here recently because the freezing levels without snow go deeper into the root systems. Oaks are affected far less because their root systems are much deeper.
A lot of other variables were also discussed. All of this only reinforced my conviction a bit more that climate change is real and threatening, but that it comes with a lot of tremendously complex variables and sleights of hand that often seem to disguise what it is doing.
There is real concern that sugar maples could disappear from New England altogether during this century. They might still survive in parts of Canada, but New England would lose one of the major natural treasures that make this area so unique.
Julia, Here’s an interesting weather related tree observation. It explains why the there’s a ring around the base of a tree after a period of snow. From Meteorologist David Epstein (Boston.com):
“if you look around trees and shrubs [with recent cold, snowy days], you will start to see rings of melting occurring. This is because the darker color of the plants is absorbing the ultra violet rays of the sun and then pushing out some heat which in turn melts the snow. If we get enough solar radiation and the temperatures warms over the freezing mark you can get rings of melting straight to the ground while there is still over a foot of snow a few inches back from the bark of a tree.”