Climate change in the US west is creating a vicious cycle.
Maybe you’ve heard that insects are chewing away at massive forests, which are then easily sparked by wildfires. Instead of being carbon sinks, they are spewing carbon into the atmosphere, fueling more climate change.
It’s warm enough there for mountain pine beetles to reproduce twice a year, dramatically increasing their population and chewing ability, according to researchers at University of Colorado at Boulder.
This exponential increase in the beetle population might help to explain the scope of the current beetle epidemic, they say, which is the largest in history and extends from the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico to the Yukon Territory near Alaska.
Over 13 million hectares of trees are dead in British Columbia, releasing 990 million tons of carbon, equal to five times the annual emissions from all forms of transportation in the country.
Forests affected by bark beetles also have altered hydrology and biogeochemical cycles, changing conifer forests from regional carbon sinks to carbon sources, thereby creating positive feedback for climate-change factors.
In the last two decades at the Mountain Research Station, mean annual temperatures have become 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer.
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