News Releases - 2010 Drought and Rising Temperatures Weaken
Southwest Forests Pacific Southwest Research Station/USDA Forest
Service Science that makes a difference. . . Contact: Sherri
Eng, PSW Research Station Public Affairs,
firstname.lastname@example.org; (510) 559-6327 ALBANY, CA
(December 13, 2010) - Forests in the southwestern United States
are changing and will face reduced growth if temperatures
continue to rise and precipitation declines during this century,
according to a study conducted by a team of scientists from the
U.S. Forest Service; University of California, Santa Barbara;
U.S. Geological Survey; and University of Arizona. Their
findings were released today in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS) special issue on climate change.
Using tree-ring data and climate models, the team determined
that rising temperatures and declining precipitation has led to
an overall lower fitness of forests in the Southwest. This
weakening of forest health has led to the trees’ inability t