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Dying trembling aspen forest near Dolores, Colorado
A dying trembling aspen forest near Dolores, Colo. These forests were struck by a lethal combination of severe drought and exceptional heat from 2000-2003, likely due to climate change.
More than 500,000 acres of aspen forests in Colorado have died off from this drought and the die-off stretches from Arizona to Canada. Recently, researchers supported by the National Science Foundation unraveled the physiology of how aspen trees die from drought stress, which is similar to a heart attack for a tree, and used it to look at the fate of these majestic forests in the future. They found that climate change is likely to bring more widespread die-offs, but that human actions to slow climate change can substantially reduce the risks to these forests. (Date of Image: July 2011)
Credit: Kimberly Pham
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