In the summer of 2021, a historic heat wave baked the Pacific Northwest. A heat dome stalled over the United States and Canada, causing temperatures to soar to 40°C–50°C (104°F–121°F). More than 650 people died, infrastructure buckled, wildfires sparked, agricultural fields withered, and forests were damaged.
“It was incredible,” said Karen Heeter, a dendrochronologist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia Climate School. That summer, Heeter was finishing up her doctorate at the University of Idaho while living in a brick building with no air conditioning. “That experience was the jumping point for me,” she said, and she decided to investigate the history of heat in the Pacific Northwest.
In a new study in npj Climate and Atmospheric Science, Heeter and her colleagues used tree ring records from the Pacific Northwest to reconstruct summer temperatures for the past 1,000 years. They found that 2021 was a scorcher—hotter than any other year in the past millennium. The data hint at a future full of heat waves.
Tree rings capture years of climate signatures: temperature, soil moisture, and wind stressors. A tree records summer temperature in its ring density. Typically, denser rings mean warmer temperatures.
https://eos.org/articles/in-the-pacific-northwest-2021-was-the-hottest-year-in-a-millennium
The hottest day @ 113 to 114F in inland valleys did a good deal of damage to Douglas Firs in those valleys. For about a three mile stretch near Maple Valley and also west of Darrington, the tops of fir branches on the south facing side of the road turned almost universally reddish brown. The underside of the branches remained green. That tells you how rare THAT EVENT WAS AS IT WOULD CERTAINLY HAVE KILLED A LOT OF DOUGLAS FIR TREES HAD THE HEAT PERSISTED.
Going S along I-5 the Doug firs were needle scorched on the S & SW sides, with distinct line right at Woodland. Farther S this was apparent all the way around the trees. By PDX the English ivy was scorched.
Unfortunately the ivy came back. Rats.
Keep Calm and Carry On?
Heck No.
Stay Excited and Get Outside!
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Keep Calm and Carry On?
Heck No.
Stay Excited and Get Outside!
Unfortunately I suspect ivies are a lot like cockroaches - they can survive a nuclear explosion. I think the trees could survive having their needles/leaves scorched, but what really gets our natives during those super-hot/dry periods is the soil dessication. Their shallow root systems can't handle it; after all, they're rainforest plants.
"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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"There are yahoos out there. It’s why we can’t have nice things." - Tom Mahood
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