How Climate Change is Affecting Our Trees

When you look around to admire the beautiful trees and scenery around you, do you notice there are trees intertwined with power lines? With increased intense storms across the country, this has become a major factor for electricians who need to remedy power outages, but usually the damage is not due to the strong winds from the storm. Often, it is because trees around the power lines have died or are partially dead. But what is causing these changes?

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, found that certain parasitic fungi were killing its trees, the growth fueled by the increase in climate in the state of California. In turn, the trees have become stressed which has caused an increase in dead and damaged trees. 

Thousands of miles across the country in Massachusetts, a centuries old red oak tweets about the changes it felt in the past few years of its life. The Witness Tree is a project led by Ghent University through TreeWatch.net. The social content from this tree is based on live readings from a slew of sensors within the tree itself. One of the last few tweets says, “The last 2 days were extremely hot for February. When is this heatwave going to end?”

Here in Virginia, fall is a time to visit places like Maymount or Skyline Drive to view the changing of the leaves. University of Richmond professor Stephanie Spera and her students have been gathering pictures and data from satellites and locals to track and predict when fall foliage will reach its peak. Spera found that peak foliage has actually been delayed a day over the last few decades which has pushed peak season until the second week of October. They predict that peak leaf season will continue to be pushed later into October in the coming years. 

Andy Finton, a forest ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts, says this is due to the fact that there is less sugar in the leaves which is necessary to produce the spectacular reds, yellows, and oranges we love to see when we go leaf-peeping. 

It’s clear that there is much impacting our trees, so it is important to make sure to keep the trees on your property healthy. At Donegan’s our experts are ready to make sure your trees grow to their fullest potential. Need advice? Or to schedule an appointment. Contact us anytime!