“The western Sierra pine forest as it was 100 years ago is not coming back.”
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sierra-dead-trees-20170128-story.html
As of January 2017, “more than 102 million drought-stressed and beetle-ravaged trees have died across 7.7 million acres of California forest. More than half of those died last year alone.
Overall, about a fifth of the trees have died in the ponderosa pine and mixed conifer belt of the park, according to Stephenson and Das. Even after this winter’s parade of Sierra storms, the deaths will continue, since it takes about a year for trees to recover from prolonged water deprivation and regain their defenses.
Stephenson’s sampling indicates that in the park areas of greatest mortality, about 50% to 70% of big ponderosa and sugar pines have died, compared with 20% to 25% of large white firs and less than 10% of incense cedars. (The cedars don’t have a major beetle predator.)”
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Picture from SFGATE
