As far as the article is concerned, my guess would be the trees can't spread northward fast enough and aren't dying off in the southern latitudes yet.

It's a good thing we don't need trees for anything.

Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Man, saps who believe the old saws of the denialists and just bark about it really go against my grain. If they'd only twig on to a more reasonable plank maybe we could make some lumbering progress in unsnarling this knotty problem. One of these days the last tree will fall in what used to be a forest and no one will be there to hear it.

fark! Ass!

Atillathepun: Man, saps who believe the old saws of the denialists and just bark about it really go against my grain. If they'd only twig on to a more reasonable plank maybe we could make some lumbering progress in unsnarling this knotty problem. One of these days the last tree will fall in what used to be a forest and no one will be there to hear it.

Nice.

untaken_name: Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Ice ages happen in geologic time. Current climate change is happening over the course of decades.

Baryogenesis: Ice ages happen in geologic time. Current climate change is happening over the course of decades.

Sounds too sciency and facty. Got anything that two brain cells can understand?

Baryogenesis: untaken_name: Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Ice ages happen in geologic time. Current climate change is happening over the course of decades.

Yes, right. Sure. And the medieval warming period - did that happen in "geologic time" too?

untaken_name: Yes, right. Sure. And the medieval warming period - did that happen in "geologic time" too?

You should let climate scientists know about this. I'm sure that they've never studied it or taken it into account.
It's amazing how they can miss something like that.

So evolve already.

0Icky0: untaken_name: Yes, right. Sure. And the medieval warming period - did that happen in "geologic time" too?

You should let climate scientists know about this. I'm sure that they've never studied it or taken it into account.
It's amazing how they can miss ignore something like that.

FTFY

0Icky0: untaken_name: Yes, right. Sure. And the medieval warming period - did that happen in "geologic time" too?

You should let climate scientists know about this. I'm sure that they've never studied it or taken it into account.
It's amazing how they can miss something like that.

Gee, I didn't know that Baryogenesis was a famous climate scientist. It's possible he may have missed it, and since he's the person I was responding to, it doesn't really make sense for me to point it out to people who aren't involved in the conversation. So, did you have an actual disagreement with something that I said, and, if so, do you have any kind of actual argument against it to present? No? Didn't think so. At least Baryogenesis actually made an argument.

untaken_name: so, do you have any kind of actual argument against it to present? No? Didn't think so.

I love this. Like you expect me to push you aside and type on your keyboard before you post.

Duh. As it gets warmer trees that function best in cooler climates need to run north but they can't because they don't have legs..

Global Warming has destroyed the maple-syrup industry in Ohio

HairBolus: Duh. As it gets warmer trees that function best in cooler climates need to run north but they can't because they don't have legs..

Okay people. This is how evolution works. Members of a species die in response to an evolutionary pressure. A section of the population has random mutations which allow some members of a species to survive and breed in the new environment.

So first, evolutionary pressure.
second unfit members die off.
third repopulation.

we are in stage 2. Totally normal.

unyon: It's comforting that the areas of the US that house the largest percentage of deniers are poised to see some of the worst effects of climate change. Karma's a biatch.

Yes, even the trees are denying the climate change. It's almost as if the climate scientists forgot to tell them the truth. Of maybe just the trees are smarter than the scientists.

The oaks are just too lofty and they grab up all the light.

But...but I thought more CO2 was good for plants...

untaken_name: Baryogenesis: untaken_name: Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Ice ages happen in geologic time. Current climate change is happening over the course of decades.

Yes, right. Sure. And the medieval warming period - did that happen in "geologic time" too?

This might come as a surprise, but the medieval warm period wasn't an ice age. It was also a regional, not global phenomenon.

Cool!

Once the trees are gone, we can replace the fiery colors of autumn with the muted greens and purples of the decaying flesh of most of the world's land animals.

untaken_name: Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Please indicate anyone who is suggesting that they will not eventually adapt.

There are concerns from scientists, thems the guys who did that evil book-learnin', that time frame for adaptation will be slow enough that man will see an impact.

So, on a geological time scale, the planet will be just fine. On man's time scale, there may be significant negative impact on our lives.


Baryogenesis: This might come as a surprise, but the medieval warm period wasn't an ice age. It was also a regional, not global phenomenon.

It's not a surprise ... they've been told it 100 times. But they don't have new scripts yet so they are still working off of the old ones.

Why would we let tree's get in the way of job creators!

I love these global warming debates. The Deniers and the Believers both end up with the same line at the end:

"You guys just refuse to listen to science."

it's they can just "get out of here!"

gezz get it right

I'm getting a kick out of this because I am against trees.

So put them in space. It's a wonderful place full of resources, even better than the Earth! I have no idea why life decided to evolve on this mud ball anyways.

untaken_name:

Good thing we've never had any kind of more extreme climate change in the past, like ice covering everything or something, because then we wouldn't have trees since they can't adapt to climate change.

Good thing we've always had 7 billion people all dependent on intensive agriculture.

Oh... Wait.

KillTheStupid: I love these global warming debates. The Deniers and the Believers both end up with the same line at the end:

"You guys just refuse to listen to science."

One difference: The deniers get their science from paid shills working at GOP think-tanks and from partisan blogs. Whereas the rest of us look to actual scientists in the field publishing peer reviewed papers.

These things are not the same no matter how much you try and equivocate them.

Headline's as funny as a screen door on a battleship...

unyon: It's comforting that the areas of the US that house the largest percentage of deniers are poised to see some of the worst effects of climate change. Karma's a biatch.

Maybe they can pray to Jesus to make it all better.

Jake Havechek: unyon: It's comforting that the areas of the US that house the largest percentage of deniers are poised to see some of the worst effects of climate change. Karma's a biatch.

Maybe they can pray to Jesus to make it all better.





Your god has forsaken you, Texas.

"Many models have suggested that trees will migrate rapidly to higher latitudes and elevations in response to warming temperatures, but evidence for a consistent, climate-driven northward migration is essentially absent in this large analysis," James S. Clark, a professor of environment, said.

So basically all of our models and predictions were wrong, but trust us, we're totally right about human cased climate change?

Or perhaps...

This finding goes against what should happen if climate change is a doom and gloom scenario that should cause radical changes... Therefore we must conclude that human created climate change is still the great horrific catastrophe that we said it was and somehow the trees aren't getting the message.

Or perhaps...

Humans are not causing climate change and our world is just going through a natural process as it has countless times long before humans were around and after having evolved for millions if not billions of years, plants and animals have figured out how to make it through these moderate shifts in temperature just fine.

You may commence with the shrieking about "Denying Science" now.

randomjsa: "Many models have suggested that trees will migrate rapidly to higher latitudes and elevations in response to warming temperatures, but evidence for a consistent, climate-driven northward migration is essentially absent in this large analysis," James S. Clark, a professor of environment, said.

So basically all of our models and predictions were wrong, but trust us, we're totally right about human cased climate change?

Or perhaps...

This finding goes against what should happen if climate change is a doom and gloom scenario that should cause radical changes... Therefore we must conclude that human created climate change is still the great horrific catastrophe that we said it was and somehow the trees aren't getting the message.

Or perhaps...

Humans are not causing climate change and our world is just going through a natural process as it has countless times long before humans were around and after having evolved for millions if not billions of years, plants and animals have figured out how to make it through these moderate shifts in temperature just fine.

You may commence with the shrieking about "Denying Science" now.

Or how about:

Science is an ongoing learning process and we're doing the best we can, with the knowledge we have, to predict what forms our modifications of the environment will bring.

In science, you don't throw out everything you've got because one of your predictions wasn't accurate. You go back to the lab and modify your predictions.

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do"

-- Ronald Reagan, 1981

So, this warming has been occuring since, when, the late 19th Century? But really, the significant rise in temps has occurred mainly since the middle of the 20th Century. And what has happened to eastern forests during this interval?

Trees once covered almost the entire eastern seaboard of the U.S. Vast forests supported a rich ecosystem, including flocks of the extinct passenger pigeon big enough to blot out the sun. But by the 1920s at least half of this forest was gone-a victim of tree-clearing for farming, forestry or fossil-fuel extraction.

Then, the forest rebounded for several decades as once-farmed fields were left fallow. But a new study reveals that since the 1970s eastern forests have begun to diminish again; roughly 3.7 million hectares of forested land-an area larger than the state of Maryland-have been transformed into subdivisions, tree plantations and lunar-esque landscapes resulting from mountaintop removal mining. In fact, the latter activity alone eliminated 420,000 hectares of woodlands in the past two decades.

"Human land use is a primary driver of environmental change," says geographer Mark Drummond of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who collaborated on the study in the April issue of BioScience with USGS Earth observation scientist Thomas Loveland. "The cumulative footprint of human activities on the land surface is causing a significant net decline in forest cover."

Suburban sprawl was the leading cause of the forest's recent retreat in much of the east. The megalopolis that stretches from Boston to Washington, D.C., has grown in extent by 90 percent since 1970, resulting in the cutting of 1.9 million hectares of trees. The southern coastal plain, northeastern highland and the Piedmont-the hilly region between the coastal plains and the Appalachian Mountains stretching from New Jersey into Georgia and Alabama-lost the most forest cover. (new window)

You know, it might be significant - or even alarming - that these forests aren't shifting northward with warming temperatures if these forests weren't being mowed down for McMansions, strip malls, and parking lots. One wonders where these fellows found enough trees in actual natural conditions to study at all. Perhaps they didnt, and they're trying to measure this from the conditions of the forests along the shoulders of the Garden State Parkway.

I hear that the Dodo Bird and Giant Panda are having trouble adjusting to global warming, as well. Well, isn't that just totally worrisome.