Climate Change
Jan. 27th, 2026 05:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithWhat happens to forests when the planet warms up too fast
New sediment records from the Norwegian Sea offer a rare, close-up look at how quickly nature can unravel when the planet warms. During a past episode of extreme global warming, coastal forests along the Arctic margin collapsed within just a few centuries.
What followed was a cascade of change – widespread wildfires, heavy soil erosion, and a rush of carbon back into the atmosphere. The study shows how land ecosystems can rapidly flip from storing carbon to releasing it, amplifying warming long after the initial trigger.
This is true, but incomplete in a problematic way. A better framing is "stand-replacing events." That is, sometimes places that used to be good for supporting a given type of forest may change, so the plants that grow there change -- maybe to a different type of forest, often to scrub or grassland or some other non-forest ecosystem. Other times, the previously dominant tree species get wiped out and some other tree(s) replaced them. Stand-replacing events aren't particularly rare and include wildfires, volcanic eruptions, large-scale landslides, massive windstorms, outbreaks of tree diseases or pests, and other events that clear out large swaths of forest. Ecosystems have methods to handle such disruptions, but these may be either helped or hindered by human activity.
The most important thing is: Do NOT rush in to replant the same kinds of trees that used to grow there. Check what conditions are currently and compare with other possible species from that habitat or nearby ones to see what might fit. Especially if the lost species was particular to a mature forest, you're going to need pioneers before the others would even consider moving back in. With climate change, do check the next-warmer region for species that may be heading toward the newly cleared area. Ideally, observe what species sprout in the aftermath; you can then help by adding more of those to any bare spots. If you absolutely can't hold your horses, plant test plots of 10 or so different species then observe what lives or dies without humans constantly fiddling with them. Add more of whatever species thrive the best there.
Rapid warming erases forests
Pollen and spore records revealed a rapid collapse of conifer forests near the Arctic coast as CO2 levels rose.
Heat and water stress reduced tree survival, and fern relatives quickly colonized the bare ground left behind.
“We could see that within a maximum of 300 years from the start of the explosive increase in CO2, the conifer-dominated vegetation disappeared at the studied site and many ferns appeared,” said Nelissen.
This is a common effect of stand-replacing events, where a forest changes to some other habitat type for a while. Especially, trees need more water than grass or many other plants. Many areas of Earth are drying out now and will naturally change to different habitats.
However, it doesn't stay there forever. Anywhere that has enough water, nutrients, soil, and sunlight to grow trees will in fact grow trees sooner or later. Usually sooner, as anyone can see after the lawnmower breaks. The high CO2? It's a threat to current plants, which haven't adapted to those conditions. But Earth has been plenty green under plenty higher CO2 in the past. It's not going to kill everything. It may well kill a lot of currently dominant species. Something else will adapt to the new conditions and take over. It will be fine. For the survivors.
Increase in wildfire activity
At the same time, charcoal fragments preserved in the same sediment layers revealed that wildfires became more frequent during this upheaval.
Fires convert living wood into smoke and ash, leaving behind tiny charcoal particles that can wash into nearby seas.
This is terrible for land animals losing habitat, aquatic creatures choked by ash, and birds with their delicate respiratory systems; also humans of course.
The most effective strategies against wildfires include traditional fire management, which varies based on indigenous tribal knowledge of various habitats. No local tribes? Try enticing a landless tribe with a land grant and see if they'll come figure out the new locale. Somebody's bound to take that bait.
Another excellent approach is wetland restoration. You could do it by hand using techniques such as gabions and gully-stuffing. But it is much easier to get beavers to do the job for you, for free. Wetlands store more water, allowing it to saturate surrounding land. They reduce flood risks and buffer storms. They support much more vegetation including wetland plants and surrounding trees such as willows and sycamores. With beavers, they create many more niches for other animals such as otters, mink, ducks, larger fish, etc. Some other wetland engineers include muskrats and water rats.
Concerned about a town? Integrate rainwater management throughout town with catchment systems, rain gardens, and bioswales to keep water out of the sewer system. Permeable pavement works for warm climates but is risky above the frost line. Route runoff to a filter marsh filled with cattails or other water plants to clean it before it pours into a pond or lake. You can do this inside town with any park large enough for a water feature, but the perimeter is where bigger gains may be created. Surround as much of your town with wetland as possible, and that makes a very effective moat against wildfires. You'll have less flooding with good water handling. Bonus! Water attracts wildlife, especially birds, and more diverse birdsong makes people happier. Throw in a trail with a few pavilions and reap the public health benefits.
Erosion fuels climate feedbacks
Clay-rich pulses in the core showed that floods carried large amounts of forest soil from land into the sea as warming continued.
Stripped of roots and leaf cover, slopes shed particles faster because rainwater ran off instead of soaking into the ground.
Don't worry, Gaia has a patch for that too. Enter the bandage plants! These are fast-growing plants with powerful root systems who are activated by disturbed soil. They are the emergency response workers who rush in to bind loose soil as fast as possible. Humans call them weeds. People are dumb. If you mess up a mountain, you don't get to bitch when poison ivy and nettles rush in to fix what you broke.
However, you have another option: the weedy wildflowers. This category contains many of the keystone plants. Throughout much of the midwest and plains, good options include weedy asters like frost aster, milkweeds, and goldenrods. Other places have different crews -- California poppies out west, fireweed farther north, and so on -- but everywhere has some. Make up a massive batch of mixed keystone seed to dump on any raw soil. Even in your own yard, if something like utility work or a tree falling exposes a big patch of soil, cover it immediately. Native wildflower or grass seed is ideal, but if nothing else get some mulch on it.
Land disturbances fuel global warming
Disturbed land can worsen warming through positive feedback, where environmental damage drives further climate change.
Burned vegetation and eroded soils shifted carbon out of storage, and microbial activity released part of it as CO2.
Now here your best bet for a patch is often native herbivores, especially in case of abused farmland or clearcuts. This can also work for things like wildfires or landslides after regrowth has established. Large grazers such as buffalo and horses, browsers such as deer or mountain goats, provide numerous benefits from seed transport to fertilizer. The key is native species. Buffalo can fix what cattle or domestic sheep have broken. Apologize for what you fucked up, turn them loose, and stay the hell out of their way while they work. For an excellent example of habitat restoration via large wildlife, see Pleistocene Park.
Seawater turns more acidic
Ocean sediments showed a sharp loss of seafloor carbonates during the PETM, a pattern first mapped in a paper on deep-sea chemistry.
As seawater absorbed extra CO2, ocean acidification reduced the carbonate minerals many organisms need to build shells.
“This made the water too acidic for organisms to form calcium carbonate skeletons or shells,” said Nelissen.
The main solution here requires cutting carbon emissions and boosting sequestration. Some techniques, such as clam gardens, may expand habitat for coastal sea life and help species withstand pressures.
However, the marine systems have dealt with this threat before. One thing you see is a shift in species from those with carbonate components to those with silicate components, bone, or soft bodies.
How You Can Help
10 Ways You Can Help Conserve Wetlands
36 kinds of flowering weeds + tips on finding beauty in unlikely places
Beaver Organizations
Best Native Plants for Rain Gardens -- Pizzo Nursery
Exploring Tribal Bison Reintroduction Efforts
How to Make Your Property (More) Attractive to Beavers
Native Plant Resources
OPN Seed Mixes
Pollinator Conservation Seed Mixes -- Xerces Society
Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists -- Xerces Society
Rain Gardens -- Direct Native Plants
Rain Gardens: A Homeowners Guide
Regional Bison Associations
Regional & State Wildflower Seed Mixes
Tribal Wildfire Resource Guide
Water and wetland protection organizations -- Cause IQ
New sediment records from the Norwegian Sea offer a rare, close-up look at how quickly nature can unravel when the planet warms. During a past episode of extreme global warming, coastal forests along the Arctic margin collapsed within just a few centuries.
What followed was a cascade of change – widespread wildfires, heavy soil erosion, and a rush of carbon back into the atmosphere. The study shows how land ecosystems can rapidly flip from storing carbon to releasing it, amplifying warming long after the initial trigger.
This is true, but incomplete in a problematic way. A better framing is "stand-replacing events." That is, sometimes places that used to be good for supporting a given type of forest may change, so the plants that grow there change -- maybe to a different type of forest, often to scrub or grassland or some other non-forest ecosystem. Other times, the previously dominant tree species get wiped out and some other tree(s) replaced them. Stand-replacing events aren't particularly rare and include wildfires, volcanic eruptions, large-scale landslides, massive windstorms, outbreaks of tree diseases or pests, and other events that clear out large swaths of forest. Ecosystems have methods to handle such disruptions, but these may be either helped or hindered by human activity.
The most important thing is: Do NOT rush in to replant the same kinds of trees that used to grow there. Check what conditions are currently and compare with other possible species from that habitat or nearby ones to see what might fit. Especially if the lost species was particular to a mature forest, you're going to need pioneers before the others would even consider moving back in. With climate change, do check the next-warmer region for species that may be heading toward the newly cleared area. Ideally, observe what species sprout in the aftermath; you can then help by adding more of those to any bare spots. If you absolutely can't hold your horses, plant test plots of 10 or so different species then observe what lives or dies without humans constantly fiddling with them. Add more of whatever species thrive the best there.
Rapid warming erases forests
Pollen and spore records revealed a rapid collapse of conifer forests near the Arctic coast as CO2 levels rose.
Heat and water stress reduced tree survival, and fern relatives quickly colonized the bare ground left behind.
“We could see that within a maximum of 300 years from the start of the explosive increase in CO2, the conifer-dominated vegetation disappeared at the studied site and many ferns appeared,” said Nelissen.
This is a common effect of stand-replacing events, where a forest changes to some other habitat type for a while. Especially, trees need more water than grass or many other plants. Many areas of Earth are drying out now and will naturally change to different habitats.
However, it doesn't stay there forever. Anywhere that has enough water, nutrients, soil, and sunlight to grow trees will in fact grow trees sooner or later. Usually sooner, as anyone can see after the lawnmower breaks. The high CO2? It's a threat to current plants, which haven't adapted to those conditions. But Earth has been plenty green under plenty higher CO2 in the past. It's not going to kill everything. It may well kill a lot of currently dominant species. Something else will adapt to the new conditions and take over. It will be fine. For the survivors.
Increase in wildfire activity
At the same time, charcoal fragments preserved in the same sediment layers revealed that wildfires became more frequent during this upheaval.
Fires convert living wood into smoke and ash, leaving behind tiny charcoal particles that can wash into nearby seas.
This is terrible for land animals losing habitat, aquatic creatures choked by ash, and birds with their delicate respiratory systems; also humans of course.
The most effective strategies against wildfires include traditional fire management, which varies based on indigenous tribal knowledge of various habitats. No local tribes? Try enticing a landless tribe with a land grant and see if they'll come figure out the new locale. Somebody's bound to take that bait.
Another excellent approach is wetland restoration. You could do it by hand using techniques such as gabions and gully-stuffing. But it is much easier to get beavers to do the job for you, for free. Wetlands store more water, allowing it to saturate surrounding land. They reduce flood risks and buffer storms. They support much more vegetation including wetland plants and surrounding trees such as willows and sycamores. With beavers, they create many more niches for other animals such as otters, mink, ducks, larger fish, etc. Some other wetland engineers include muskrats and water rats.
Concerned about a town? Integrate rainwater management throughout town with catchment systems, rain gardens, and bioswales to keep water out of the sewer system. Permeable pavement works for warm climates but is risky above the frost line. Route runoff to a filter marsh filled with cattails or other water plants to clean it before it pours into a pond or lake. You can do this inside town with any park large enough for a water feature, but the perimeter is where bigger gains may be created. Surround as much of your town with wetland as possible, and that makes a very effective moat against wildfires. You'll have less flooding with good water handling. Bonus! Water attracts wildlife, especially birds, and more diverse birdsong makes people happier. Throw in a trail with a few pavilions and reap the public health benefits.
Erosion fuels climate feedbacks
Clay-rich pulses in the core showed that floods carried large amounts of forest soil from land into the sea as warming continued.
Stripped of roots and leaf cover, slopes shed particles faster because rainwater ran off instead of soaking into the ground.
Don't worry, Gaia has a patch for that too. Enter the bandage plants! These are fast-growing plants with powerful root systems who are activated by disturbed soil. They are the emergency response workers who rush in to bind loose soil as fast as possible. Humans call them weeds. People are dumb. If you mess up a mountain, you don't get to bitch when poison ivy and nettles rush in to fix what you broke.
However, you have another option: the weedy wildflowers. This category contains many of the keystone plants. Throughout much of the midwest and plains, good options include weedy asters like frost aster, milkweeds, and goldenrods. Other places have different crews -- California poppies out west, fireweed farther north, and so on -- but everywhere has some. Make up a massive batch of mixed keystone seed to dump on any raw soil. Even in your own yard, if something like utility work or a tree falling exposes a big patch of soil, cover it immediately. Native wildflower or grass seed is ideal, but if nothing else get some mulch on it.
Land disturbances fuel global warming
Disturbed land can worsen warming through positive feedback, where environmental damage drives further climate change.
Burned vegetation and eroded soils shifted carbon out of storage, and microbial activity released part of it as CO2.
Now here your best bet for a patch is often native herbivores, especially in case of abused farmland or clearcuts. This can also work for things like wildfires or landslides after regrowth has established. Large grazers such as buffalo and horses, browsers such as deer or mountain goats, provide numerous benefits from seed transport to fertilizer. The key is native species. Buffalo can fix what cattle or domestic sheep have broken. Apologize for what you fucked up, turn them loose, and stay the hell out of their way while they work. For an excellent example of habitat restoration via large wildlife, see Pleistocene Park.
Seawater turns more acidic
Ocean sediments showed a sharp loss of seafloor carbonates during the PETM, a pattern first mapped in a paper on deep-sea chemistry.
As seawater absorbed extra CO2, ocean acidification reduced the carbonate minerals many organisms need to build shells.
“This made the water too acidic for organisms to form calcium carbonate skeletons or shells,” said Nelissen.
The main solution here requires cutting carbon emissions and boosting sequestration. Some techniques, such as clam gardens, may expand habitat for coastal sea life and help species withstand pressures.
However, the marine systems have dealt with this threat before. One thing you see is a shift in species from those with carbonate components to those with silicate components, bone, or soft bodies.
How You Can Help
10 Ways You Can Help Conserve Wetlands
36 kinds of flowering weeds + tips on finding beauty in unlikely places
Beaver Organizations
Best Native Plants for Rain Gardens -- Pizzo Nursery
Exploring Tribal Bison Reintroduction Efforts
How to Make Your Property (More) Attractive to Beavers
Native Plant Resources
OPN Seed Mixes
Pollinator Conservation Seed Mixes -- Xerces Society
Pollinator-Friendly Native Plant Lists -- Xerces Society
Rain Gardens -- Direct Native Plants
Rain Gardens: A Homeowners Guide
Regional Bison Associations
Regional & State Wildflower Seed Mixes
Tribal Wildfire Resource Guide
Water and wetland protection organizations -- Cause IQ
