Forests
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You may have heard or read about the lengthy drought that has been impacting the western US over the last decade or two. Since written records only go back into the 1800s, scientists use tree rings to provide proxy data that can help identify when rainfall was scant, since trees don’t grow much in a…
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While many people think of the Pacific Northwest as the main area of lumber production, the economic reality is that the industry’s center of gravity has shifted to the South, according to a recent article in Blue Mountain Eagle. According to the article, the NW’s thunder has been stolen by the South’s abundant timber supplies…
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The Georgia Climate Project announced a new website that discusses how the changing climate is affecting Georgia’s (and the Southeast’s) forests. It talks about carbon sequestration, impacts on ecosystems, and how foresters are adapting to and helping mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. You can visit it at Forests – Georgia Climate…
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The Southern Group of State Foresters posted an interesting perspective on our forests, including the challenges they face from urbanization, climate changes, and market drivers. They also provide solutions to counter the challenges they are facing. While I find their commentary to push wood products and commercial forestry a bit (not surprising), they do provide…
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Climate scientists are constantly analyzing data and looking at results of computer modeling to better understand how the earth’s atmosphere/ocean system works. Even though it may seem like they are changing their minds, they are really updating their understanding when they see new information in the data they are studying. That is what science is.…
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Estimating damage following a major hurricane can be difficult, as many extension agents in the Southeast know after the spate of hurricanes and tropical storms that have traveled across the region in the last five years or so. Here is a story from Morning Ag Clips that describes preliminary agricultural damage to Louisiana from Hurricane…
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It’s hard to think about forest fires in the Southeast this year with all the rain we have had, but it was not that many years ago that fires were a terrible reality. I remember walking out of my office in northeast GA smelling the smoke in 2016 from the fires in the mountains to…