Last month, unusually high winds knocked down 15 giant sequoias in Yosemite.
If you haven’t had a chance to see them in person, giant sequoias are big — like, warp-your-sense-of-scale and melt-your-brain big. Then, once you’ve taken in their size, they do the same thing with your sense of time, because an individual tree can survive thousands of years. Wars, plagues, fashion trends: Sequoias have lived through and outlasted them all. To last thousands of years, any sequoia has also endured hungry animals, diseases, fires, snowstorms, El Niño events, and years-long droughts, not to mention the opportunistic loggers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
What a shame, then, for 15 trees to survive through so many challenges only to die in a windstorm. Sadly, this is a climate change story. While sequoias are wonderfully adapted to their narrow range in California’s Western Sierras, this habitat has been unusually sensitive to changing weather patterns, and may be changing faster than sequoias can migrate or adapt. If we want to ensure these majestic trees’ survival, it’s time to consider planting a new generation of sequoias in colder, nearby habitats.
Continue reading at Columbia University Earth Institute
Image via Columbia University Earth Institute
