Protecting Old Friends
- vickydinov
- Aug 31, 2020
- 6 min read
Bored in the house and in the house bored: this perfectly describes the beginning of my so-called “corona-cation.” When first learning that schools would be shut down for the rest of the year, my friends and I were thrilled- endless time meant endless adventures. However, we vastly underestimated the severity of the situation, and soon found ourselves trapped in our rooms with little interaction with each other, much less the beautiful adventures we had planned. After three full months of quarantining, we popped out of the shells of our house for our first interactions. Slowly, the state of California began to reopen- led by Governor Newsom’s three-stage plan. By July, many Californians began to return to work, walk/hike/bike on trails, and the plethora of beaches that California offers.
Fast-forward two weeks and two of my friends and I are groggily stumbling into my Toyota Camry, loaded with camping and backpacking gear and light hearts. Driving down Highway 1 at 7 am on a Tuesday, we soon reached our beginning destination: Big Sur, California. Big Sur, in my opinion, is home to the most beautiful stretches of land and forest in California. Located in the heart of Big Sur lies its most popular attraction- McWay Falls- which we visited, albeit the many detours we took along the way. Pfieffer falls, Julia Pfieffer State Beach, Salmon Creek Falls, and Limekiln Falls are just a few of the other wondrous watery attractions in Big Sur.
Getting our fill of waterfalls and beaches, we continued down Highway 1, driving past fields of cows, horses, and zebras (yes, we saw zebras!). Soon entering the dead-zone (coined so because of its lack of cell phone service) we became enveloped by the gentle giants- Big Sur’s redwoods. The redwoods were my favorite part of the trip, and the main reason I embarked on this week-long escapade. Towering 200 to 240 feet above us, these majestic trees welcomed us with their long stretches of shade, endless hues of green, and earthy aromas. These trees are beautiful. These trees are resilient. But, these trees are also in danger.
With global temperatures on the rise, the effects of climate change have become more prominent on our world’s ecosystems- with no exceptions for the redwoods. Climate change poses a unique threat to the iconic California redwoods as it attacks them on many fronts: from droughts to coastal fogs to increased fire predictions. To combat these rising concerns, a cohort of scientists from the University of California university system started what is seen as a “UC-wide initiative” to explore the effects of climate change on California’s set of diverse ecosystems. One of these ecosystems happens to be my state’s precious redwood forests.
In the initial stages of their investigation, this team hypothesized that coastal fog affected the resilience of the redwoods. Though drinking water for the trees was readily suppliable throughout the rainy Central California winters, the summer brought a different story- one ladden with drought. The redwoods require ample water supply to quench their thirst. As a result of the droughts that often sweep California during summertime, the redwoods often rely on heavy coastal fogs to get them through the hot months. However, according to UC Berkeley professor and scientist Todd Dawson, climate change threatens the extent of these coastal fogs. Elliott Campbell, an environmental engineer from UC Merced that is also taking part in this initiative, has also discussed the importance of the fog in reducing the redwoods’ thirst for water during dry spells and times of the year- namely during summertime. The redwoods rely on the fog water by absorbing it through their leaves upon condensation. Dawson backed up Campbell’s findings by discovering that many of the redwoods had the unique ability to extract water from the fog, allowing them to take water up their roots and their leaves.
In a study Dawson conducted in partnership with the laboratory for Stable Isotope Research and Analysis at Cornell University, Dawson and his team found that fog played an even more important role than previously thought in the water relations of plants. Following a three-year investigation of fog inputs and intake from plants in the coastal redwood area, Dawson and team concluded that 34% of all annual hydrologic (water) input came from fog drip off redwood trees. This marks a significant reliance on fog as a water source, making it even more worrisome that the coastal fogs are slowly disappearing. With the global temperatures rising and 2016 being the warmest year on record, the increasingly fog-free summers on the coast are disastrous for the redwoods. Deprived of their primary summertime water source, the rapidity of the changing environment, and an increased usage of fossil fuels, the previously resilient and all-withstanding giant trees may very well be on their path to doom.
Of all of the redwoods in the Central and Northern coast of California, the Big Sur redwoods are perhaps the most at risk. Scientists Wendy Baxter and Anthony Ambrose are concerned that these so-called “edge groves” will disappear under the burden of reduced fog and scarce water supply. The Big Sur coast, according to many hydrological predictions, is forecast to experience hotter and drier conditions than ever before. Louis Santagio, a professor at UC Riverside of physiological ecology, released in a comment to the Mercury News that “‘If the water supply was to change, it could change the redwoods’ distribution, and the Big Sur area would be the first to suffer.’” This is largely due to the more southern location of the Big Sur redwoods, which make them easy targets for extreme heat waves, droughts, and the resulting depression of coastal fogs.
A study by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decision in 2012 found that big trees, namely sequoias and redwoods, were dying at 10 times the rate of smaller trees in the world directly due to the effects of climate change. These results are not only troublesome for the redwoods, but also for entire ecosystems. The 2012 study also found that the die-off of redwoods and other giant trees had global implications. The research group found that large trees (those older than 100 years of age) stored a majority of any given forest’s carbon, provided habitats for nearly a third of residing wildlife species, and played major roles in the health of most large ecosystems. Tree ecologists Wendy Baxter and Anthony Ambrose from UC Berkeley confirmed this as they noted the importance of the redwoods to the California forest ecosystem. These trees, Baxter and Ambrose found, were major sources of clear water, habitat, and carbon sequestration for the forest. This made them a keystone species, meaning that if they were to disappear, the ecosystem would drastically change- most likely making a change for the worse.
Concerned by these findings, redwood scientist Steve Sillett embarked with his team of researchers to measure the exact effects of global warming on the California trees. Funded by Save the Redwoods League in San Francisco, Sillett and his team are using the next three years to climb the redwoods and sequoias at 13 major locations in California. They plan to fit the trees with sensors that measure things such as humidity, fog, light, barometric pressure, and temperature among many other assessments. The goal of this work is to see how the trees respond to the changes in temperature and the subsequent reduction in fog.
Driving along Highway 1 into Big Sur, my friends and I were flushed with excitement. Waking up in the early hours of the morning (5 am), we would be greeted by a light fog surrounding our campsite and following us along our path up the nearby mountain to watch the sunrise. However, with the rising of the sun came the falling of the fog. Temperatures would soon skyrocket from 60-something to 90-something in a matter of minutes, and we would soon be chased out of the forest and back into the car or the nearby waterfalls to escape the blistering heat. The redwoods, however, have no place to escape. They cannot run away.
The redwoods are resilient, but resiliency cannot always combat unnatural destruction. Looking at the redwoods, which have lived hundreds of years through the driest and wettest of spells, it makes it hard for me to imagine how mere humans such as myself could cause so much destruction and hardship for these great beings. The time for the redwoods to be resilient has passed. It is now time for us humans to remain resilient in our fight against climate change, and stand by our policies and legislation that will push for greener initiatives.
In 2019, the United Nations proclaimed that humans only had eleven years before climate change was irreversible. Well, now we have ten. Do we really want to erase hundreds of years of redwood livelihood, thousands of ecosystems, and perhaps our own world in the name of comfort? I hope not. It is time for us to act, and act fast before our hands become laced with the blood of a thousand redwoods. Henry David Thoreau once said, “If we want to save our lives, we must fight for them.” I know I will fight to the death to save the lives of our Earth and its inhabitants - and I hope you will too.
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