Blame It On The Trees

Western Forests Will Play Role In Climate Change

By Joseph Friedrichs, 2-16-07

A collection of scientists suggested this week that forest elements will impact global climate change and could likely cause milder winters, scorching summers and show an increase in severe fires throughout Central Oregon and extending to the Rocky Mountains.

Climate change could also cause declines in salmon populations because of warmer waters, alter growing seasons and add more stress on arid areas, a group of about 20 speakers speaking at Oregon State University in Corvallis said, according to a story by Kate Ramsayer in today’s Bend Bulletin.

Warmer temperatures could also put a strain on Western water supplies, the speakers told forest managers, timber industry representatives and conservationists in the audience, according to the Bulletin.

Their basic point: We are all doomed.

Hal Salwasser, dean of the College of Forestry at OSU in Corvallis, told the crowd of approximately 300 people that the forest in the future is not going to look anything like the forest from the present.

Salwasser did not describe these “future forests” in much detail, although there is the possibility that iPods and high-definition television will play a role in them, this reporter believes.

Forests have the potential to help alleviate climate change by storing one of the key elements that scientists have linked to the problem: carbon, the Bulletin reported.

When carbon blends with oxygen to form carbon dioxide, the result is a greenhouse gas. These gases trap heat radiated from the sun and reflected off the Earth’s surface, said Mark Harmon, an ecologist for OSU’s Department of Forest Science, according to the Bulletin.

The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are the highest they’ve been in 650,000 years and are predicted to rise, Harmon said, according to the Bulletin.

As we learned in Botany 101, trees and other plants take in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, convert it to sugars during photosynthesis and store it.

And while fossil fuels have long been the major focus of discussions on climate change, it’s important to understand that forests will play a role as well, the scientists explained.

Changes in land use, such as clearing forests for agriculture or development, reduce the amount of carbon stored. But planting more trees and letting them grow for longer periods of time could take more of the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere, the scientists explained.

Foresters also need to pay attention to an increasing threat of wildfires with higher temperatures, said Ronald Neilson, of the Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station in Corvallis, the Bulletin reported.

People might also want to start thinking of carbon as a new objective in forest management, said Olga Krankina, an assistant professor at OSU’s department of forestry, according to the Bulletin.

Trees take in increasing amounts of carbon as they grow, but at certain ages, the amount they take in and store levels off. To maximize the amount of carbon stored, managers should increase the length of time between tree harvests, Krankina said. For example, letting a forest grow for more than 100 years instead of 40 could increase the amount of carbon stored by 50 percent.

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