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--></style><title>Our new climate isn't looking
forest-friendly</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>The article:</b> Noah D. Charney et
al, Observed forest sensitivity to climate implies large changes in
21st century North American forest growth,<i> Ecology Letters</i>
(2016).</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">DOI: 10.1111/ele.12650</font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"
>http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12650/abstract;jsessi<span
></span>onid=FE48F403B6D88E2BDB6B40AD7BBDB8E2.f01t02</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>News release here</b> (includes
informative, at-a-glance map)</font></div>
<div><font
face="Lucida Grande"
>http://phys.org/news/2016-07-north-american-forests-climate.html</font
></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><b>Excerpts from the
release:</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">The most dramatic changes in projected
forest growth rates were found in the interior West of the North
American continent, with up to 75 percent slower growth projected for
trees in the southwestern U.S., along the Rockies, through interior
Canada and Alaska.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">"Many previous climate modeling
studies counted on the boreal forests to save us from the climatic
disaster by offsetting our emissions, but we don't' see any greening
in our results," said Valerie Trouet, an associate professor in
the LTRR. "Instead, we see browning. The positive influence
warmer temperatures are believed to have on boreal forests-we don't
see that at all."</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">"In Alaska, for example, where
trees have been projected to respond positively to warming
temperatures under the boreal greening effect, we see that trees are
now responding negatively instead," Evans said. "Trees in
very high latitudes are limited by cold temperatures, so yes, in
warmer years they grow more, but there is a tipping point, and once
they go past that, a warmer climate becomes a bad thing instead of a
good thing."<br>
<br>
"There is a critical and potentially detrimental feedback loop
going on here," Charney said. "When the growth rate of trees
slows down in response to environmental stressors such as cold or
drought, they can get by for a few years, but over time, they deplete
their resources and are much more susceptible to additional stressors,
such as damage by fire or a big drought or insect outbreaks. Year
after year of slow growth therefore means forests become less and less
resilient."</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"><br>
As a result, a forest can go from being a climate asset to a carbon
producer very quickly.</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande">"It's like a thermostat gone
bad," Evans said. "Forests act as a carbon sink by taking
carbon dioxide out of atmosphere, but the more the climate is warming,
the slower the trees are growing, the less carbon they suck up, the
faster the climate is changing."</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">Read more
at:</font><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#232E45">
http://phys.org/news/2016-07-north-american-forests-climate.html#jCp</font
></div>
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color="#000000"
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++<span
></span>++</font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000">"Increasingly,
gaining access to farmland is part of a broader corporate strategy to
profit from carbon markets, mineral resources, water resources, seeds,
soil and environmental services."</font><br>
<font face="Lucida Grande" color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font face="Lucida Grande"
color="#FFFF00"><u
>https://www.grain.org/article/entries/5492-the-global-farmland-grab-<span
></span>in-2016-how-big-how-bad</u></font></div>
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></span>++<font face="Lucida Grande" size="-1"><u><br>
"Wh</u>en asked why climate change is so politically charged, John
Holden, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology,
tells us: "I think the most fundamental reason is this
misperception that being in favour of addressing</font></font><font
face="Lucida Grande" size="-1" color="#262626"> the climate change
challenge is to be against jobs and the economy."</font></div>
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</font><font face="Cambria" size="-2"
color="#FFFF00"><u
>http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/techknow/2016/07/politics-climat<span
></span>e-change-united-states-160714105644450.html<br>
</u></font><font face="Bookman Old Style" color="#000000"><br>
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