At Least 40 Million Trees Killed Since 1990 By Spruce Bark Beetles In Yukon Teritotry

[hatrack]

KLUANE NATIONAL PARK, YUKON – It was raining lightly, as it had been for most of this cool, unsettled Yukon spring, as we flew down the Alsek Valley in Kluane National Park toward the Lowell Glacier, a magnificent river of ice that winds out of the St. Elias Mountain Range. But no amount of moisture was going to green up the forest below. From one end of the valley to the other, virtually every tree was a ghostly grey. "Have a look, anywhere you want," said pilot Doug Makkonen as he slowly did a 360-degree spin in the helicopter. "What you see here is what we have in almost every valley of this park. It's all dead wood from mountaintop to riverside. It's just sitting there waiting for lightning to fire it up."

In the long history of the Arctic, climatic variability has produced both winners and losers. And so it may be in the next century as greenhouse gas emissions put an extra layer of insulation into a rapidly warming atmosphere. But here in the southwest corner of the Yukon and Alaska, it's difficult to see any upside to the changes taking place to the landscape.

Seventeen years ago when the spruce beetle began to seriously bore into the trees of the southwest corner of the Yukon and Alaska, for example, no one thought much of it. The six-legged, quarter-inch-long bug has been feeding on small patches of trees in this part of the world for thousands of years. Traditionally, several weeks of intense, cold winter keeps the bugs in check. But every once in a while, the beetles get the upper hand and the spruce forests suffer.

No one, however, has seen the kind of devastation now taking place. At least 40 million trees are dead or dying in the Yukon. Tens of million more in Alaska are kindling. The voracious feeding cycle that used to play itself out after three or four years has now gone on for 17. Everything from the Kenai Peninsula in southwest Alaska to Kluane and the Shakwak Valley in the Yukon has been hit hard.

EDIT

http://www.thestar.com/ArcticInPeril/article/281497

[rawtribe]

1. Plague of beetles raises climate change fears for American beauty

Colorado's distinctive lodgepole pine trees are under attack from a beetle infestation described by scientists as a "perfect storm" which could destroy 90% of the western American state's pine forests.

The bark beetle outbreak was responsible for the death of 4.8m lodgepole pines in Colorado last year, up from 1m in 2005. The infestation has spread across 1,000 square miles of forest - nearly half the total in the state. Forty three per cent of the state's lodgepole pines have died as a result of the infestation. But it is not limited to Colorado: the beetles have munched their way through the western US and Canada, affecting 36,000 square miles of forest.

"I knew we would have an infestation," says Jan Burke, a silviculturist for Colorado's White River national forest, "but I never remotely imagined this. Nobody predicted this." She looks up at the mountains behind the ski resort of Vail, sweeping hillsides of pine pockmarked with the orange stain of dead trees and the delicate feathery grey of aspens. "I guess we're the lucky ones because in our lifetime we got to see these forests. Our children won't. For many that's a bitter pill to swallow."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/mar/19/usnews.conservationandendangeredspecies

[whirlygigspin]

2. I still mourn the American Elm

what a beauty, so sad. I cry just thinking about it.
Dutch Elm Desease destroyed so many beautiful places

[msongs]

3. forests will purge themselves through the natural process of fire nt

[whirlygigspin]

4. here's an example

[bananas]

6. Astonishing photo - thanks

It's hard to believe they're the same street.
It became so stark and desolate.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. This is a huge positive carbon feedback.

Add in all the deforestation globally, and it's easy to see just how completely we've decimated the planet and nature.