Friday Top of the Scroll: A decade of drought and fire killed a third of Sierra Nevada forests
Admirers of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains are familiar with the swaths of blackened trees flanking its sprawling green forest ranges. A new UC Berkeley study quantifies that devastation, finding nearly a third of southern Sierra conifer forests have died in the last decade. California has seen devastating bouts of drought and record-breaking wildfire events in the last several years…. Healthy forests support critical biodiversity and ecological function, like storing water that melts into our reservoirs. They also provide key carbon storage in our fight against the extreme weather dangers posed by climate change.