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--></style><title>Streamflow after forest dieoff: Evidence against
popular h</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Times">When trees die, water slows<br>
UNIVERSITY OF UTAH</font></div>
<div><font face="Times">Public Release: 16-Dec-2015</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times">Summary:</font></div>
<div><font face="Times">Mountain pine beetle populations have exploded
over the past decade, and these insects have infected and killed
thousands of acres of western pine forests. Researchers predicted that
as trees died, streamflow would increase, but a new study disproved
this hypothesis.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"><br>
JOURNAL<br>
<i>Water Resources Research</i><br>
MEETING</font></div>
<div><font face="Times">2015 AGU Fall Meeting</font></div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Excerpt:</div>
<div><font face="Times">A recent study by University of Utah geology
and geophysics professor Paul Brooks and his colleagues in Arizona,
Colorado and Idaho, found that if too many trees die, compensatory
processes kick in and may actually reduce water availability. When
large areas of trees die, the forest floor becomes sunnier, warmer and
windier, which causes winter snow and summer rain to evaporate rather
than slowly recharging groundwater.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"><br>
Brooks presented this research at the American Geophysical Union's
annual meeting this week in San Francisco. The AGU annual meeting is
the largest Earth and space science meeting in the world.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times">###</font></div>
<div><font face="Times">Full press release here:</font></div>
<div><font
face="Times"
>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/uou-wtd121615.php</font
></div>
<div><br></div>
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color="#000000"
>--------------------------------------------------------------------<span
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"Irrigation begins to significantly reduce temperatures and
temperature trends during boreal summer over the Northern Hemisphere
mid-latitudes and tropics beginning around 1950; significant increases
in precipitation occur in these same latitude bands. These trends
reveal the varying importance of irrigation_climate interactions and
suggest that future climate studies should account for irrigation,
especially in regions with unsustainable irrigation resources."<br>
<br>
Puma, M. J., and B. I. Cook (2010), Effects of irrigation on global
climate during the 20th century,<i> J. Geophys. Res</i>., 115, D16120,
doi:10.1029/2010JD014122.</font></div>
<div><font face="Times"
color="#1A1818">============================================</font></div
>
<div><font face="Times" color="#1A1818">"New assessments of decades'
worth of snowpack measurements show that snowpack levels have dropped
considerably throughout the American West in response to a 0.8°C
warming since the 1950s."</font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#1A1818"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Times" color="#1A1818">"'Snow is our water
storage in the West,' says Philip Mote, a climatologist at the
University of Washington (UW), Seattle, who leads a team that has
produced much of the new work. 'When you remove that much storage,
there is simply no way to make up for it.'<br>
<br>
"The impacts could be profound."<br>
<br>
Robert F. Service. As the West Goes Dry.<br>
<i>Science</i> February 20, 2004</font><br>
<font face="Times" color="#1A1818"></font></div>
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