Climate change, forests, and the forest nursery industry
Conference Paper
Justification
Western North America
The devastating consequences of Hurricane Katrina demonstrate how ill-prepared people are when it comes to extreme weather events and potential changes in climate. The hurricane itself cannot be directly ascribed to climate change, but the likelihood of stronger hurricanes can be. The more energy the atmosphere has as it warms because of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses, the more energy it needs to shuffle around. Hurricanes are one way of doing just that. The potential risks from just such an event had been described in the region’s major daily paper, yet the response to the hurricane seems to indicate that little action had been taken to get ready. The lessons of the event must be taken seriously by all sectors of society because climate change is a certainty, is now well underway, and will impact us all (Fischlin and others 2007). The fourth series of reports issued in 2007 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC IV), in what is a conservative account of climate change and its impacts, warns us clearly that major effects on forests must be expected (Fischlin and others 2007; Nabuurs and others 2007). In northwestern North America, the climate has already changed and is continuing to change, and those changes are having serious impacts on regional forests. Furthermore, in one of the IPCC IV reports, Fischlin and others (2007) identify northwest North American forests as especially likely to be impacted by climate change. The devastating mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae ) outbreak in the interior of British Columbia and adjacent regions has single-handedly altered the character of forests over a huge area in less than decade (Carroll and others 2006). Increases in Dothistroma needle blight on lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta ) are also attributed to changes in climate (Woods and others 2005). In the coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia, western redcedars (Thuja plicata ) are showing excessive autumn branchlet drop and top die-back, likely as a result of increased summer moisture deficits (Hebda 2006).
