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2017 12 Trees Impact Ice Storms Climate

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19 views6 pages

2017 12 Trees Impact Ice Storms Climate

Uploaded by

crypt6969
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Freezing trees, finding answers: Researchers

study impact of ice storms, climate change

December 6 2017

Wendy Leuenberger, a former graduate student at SUNY-ESF, measures ice


accumulation following a simulated ice storm at the Hubbard Brook
Experimental Forest, NH. Credit: Joe Klementovitch

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Ecologist Lindsey Rustad sculpts ice forests. She's not a sculptor by
trade, but in her latest ecology experiment, her team sprayed water over
a portion of forest during the coldest part of the night. Within hours, the
water froze to the branches, simulating an ice storm.

Rustad, a scientist with USDA Forest Service, is concerned about


evidence suggesting climate change will bring severe ice storms more
often. Rustad wants to know how this will affect forest health.

"I'm a master forest manipulator, but this experiment, without a doubt,


was the most difficult," says Rustad.

Rustad has been manipulating forest for decades, testing the effects of
climate change in a controlled setting. She's acidified forests and created
other chemical disturbances to gauge how resilient forests are to change.
But although scientists have studied the impacts of forest fires and acid
rain, no one's looked closely at the impacts of ice storms.

"If you live in a place like Maine or New Hampshire, you see these
events almost annually," says Rustad. "And every five to ten years we
have big ones."

Ice storms can wreak havoc on communities. Frozen limbs, dragged


down by the weight of the ice, can snap off and fall on cars, homes, and
power lines. But scientists aren't sure how ice storms affect long-term
forest health.

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An ice storm technician helps out with night icing during an ice storm
experiment at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, NH. Credit: Joe
Klementovitch

"It's not easy to study ice storms because they're difficult to predict,"
explains Rustad. "We didn't want to become storm chasers, so we
decided to make our own."

Rustad partnered with scientists from throughout New England and


conducted the experiment at the 8,000-acre USDA Forest Service
Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains of New
Hampshire. They used fire hoses to pump water from a nearby creek and
sprayed water onto different sections of the forest. Each section was the

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size of a basketball court.

The team sprayed various amounts of water to create a light icing


(quarter-inch), a significant icing (half-inch) and an extreme icing (three-
fourth inch).

The team will compare the frozen forests to nearby, undisturbed forest
area. They'll compare forest health indicators: soil nutrient cycling,
forest regrowth, and wildlife. The research will join a decades-long
project on how a severe ice storm in 1998 affected northeastern U.S. and
Canada.

The research project will finish next year, but Rustad has a few hunches
about the results. She says a light icing can be good for forests. A light
ice storm, with a quarter-inch ice coating, can thin out branches and
make way for new growth.

Night icing during an ice storm experiment at the Hubbard Brook Experimental

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Forest, NH. Credit: Lindsey Rustad.

"Trees have a certain amount of stored carbon," she says. "With one
icing, they have enough reserves to re-foliate and recover."

But back-to-back severe icing events can be devastating to a forest's


carbon reserves. Climate change scientists forecast that ice events will
increase in frequency.

Still, Rustad is hopeful about forests, and the ability of science to


influence policy.

"Our forests are tremendously resilient," Rustad asserts. "I grew up in


the days of acid rain. So scientists embarked on a couple decades of
exhaustive research and we passed the Clean Air Act, and reduced sulfur
emissions by 80%."

The team studying ice storms is interdisciplinary. One group will use the
data to improve a climate prediction model by incorporating extreme ice
events. Another group will study soil properties and other forest health
indicators. The team also included the input of public utility, recreation,
and safety groups. Rustad also hopes the research will be useful for
devising new ways of warning the public about extreme events.

Provided by American Society of Agronomy

Citation: Freezing trees, finding answers: Researchers study impact of ice storms, climate change
(2017, December 6) retrieved 3 April 2024 from https://phys.org/news/2017-12-trees-impact-ice-
storms-climate.html

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