Sierra Nevada Warming Moving Faster Than At Any Point In Past 500K Years - Sequoia's Future In Doubt

[hatrack]

The 2,000-year-old giant sequoias east of Fresno have survived warm spells lasting centuries, but in just 100 years, global warming could snuff them out -- along with many Sierra Nevada species. Why? The current episode of climate change is moving faster than any warm-up detected in the past 500,000 years, many scientists say. Many say car exhaust and other global-warming emissions from human activities may be the reason.

The rising temperatures probably will shorten the Sierra's long, snowy winters and force mass uphill migrations by sequoias, Sierra bighorn sheep, dusky woodrats, rabbitlike pikas and mountain yellow-legged frogs, scientists say. The warming could mean oblivion for those that can't cope.

"I avoid being an alarmist," said Nathan Stephenson, a U.S. Geological Survey research ecologist at the agency's Sequoia National Park field station. "But there's a chance sequoias won't survive at all if they can't find the right soil conditions at higher elevations."

The bighorn sheep, another mountain icon, might be forced to move uphill away from predators, perhaps marooning themselves on alpine islands away from their food sources, according to scientists. No one knows what will become of the small, hearty shrubs and animals above 11,000 feet if the Sierra's small glaciers disappear. Glacial ice has dripped precious water into an arid alpine landscape for thousands of summers, but it may last only a few more decades, scientists say. The warming also probably will force pines and firs to move uphill, along with vast communities of shrubs, herbs and grasses that support wildlife and help purify California's air.

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http://www.fresnobee.com/263/story/490412.html

[malakai2]

1. Sequoias will survive as a species

There are probably enough small ones scattered across suburban yards North America and possibly Europe as foliage plants and curiosities to keep them around. Not as a functional evolutionary unit, though. The same could really be said of a lot of critters already...black footed ferrets, whooping cranes, a couple species of prairie dog, red wolves, a whole bunch of southeastern mussels, the list goes on and on.

[kestrel91316]

2. So there is something that magically protects sequoias from

severe, permanent climate disruption???

You don't get it. AT ALL.

You go ahead and keep living in your "Everything's Really Gonna Be Ok" fantasyland............no wonder we are so screwed, with this sort of thinking.

Most plant AND animal species on earth right now are gonna be PERMANENTLY gone in this present great extinction event. Including, most likely, the folks who would be watering those suburban yards you think sequoias are gonna survive in.

[malakai2]

3. Did you not comprehend anything I said after the post subject?

I said they'll still exist as a species, meaning genetically, because people plant them as ornamentals in their yards worldwide. I also said that a good many species are effectively zombies. Then I listed a handful of such species, which, although they still exist, no longer serve an evolutionary role, in some cases because their natural habitat is gone forever. That is not a value judgment, it is just a statement of how things are.

So while someone may be able to come to work with me and marvel at a black-footed ferret hopping around between prairie dog burrows some night and think everything is fine because the animal is right there in front of him, I see that same animal and understand all the social, political, legal, and financial hurdles that had to be overcome to create the scene, and know that it really only exists in a glorified zoo that is constantly under threat from all directions. I am not okay with that. But I also understand that for this one species, in an affluent and relatively well-educated nation, the prognosis is dim and I can't do anything to change it. It is the very best we can hope for. The situation is similar or worse for millions of other species globally.

None of this will change without a radical reduction in human population, and given how hard it is for us to even limit growth in population and consumption rates, I don't think we'll find anyone willing to volunteer for downsizing. So we'll be here, liberating CO2 into the atmosphere, fouling waterways with persistent organic pollutants, homogenizing species distributions, and simplifying ecosystems to an ever greater extent and with ever greater efficiency for the foreseeable future. It doesn't really need to be this way, we could still have a more or less historically complete biosphere if people had been a little less zealous here or there over the past few thousand years...but then again, people arose from that biosphere and are still part of it, and as such are nothing more than a manifestation of past evolutionary pressures and an evolutionary pressure on everything else. That will never change. If you'd like to see someone who doesn't get it, go find a mirror.

[bluesmail]

4. OMG those majestic sequoias

even they are in peril, is nothing sacred?