National Geographic Highlights UA Tree-Ring Laboratory
In drought-parched Los Padres National Forest in Southern California, a helitanker douses a hot spot in the huge Zaca fire that erupted in July 2007, scorching 240,000 acres. Years of sparse rain primed the region for the second largest fire in California history. (Vincent Laforet)
Dendrochronologists are featured this month in a story on drought in the American West.
The images are stunningly beautiful but the message is a sober one: Drought is drying up the American West, and human suppression of 20th century forest fires is quickening the problem.
The current issue of National Geographic magazine includes an article, "Drying of the West," that features Thomas Swetnam, director of The University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and an authority on the history of forest fires, David Meko, UA associate research professor of dendrochronology, and Connie Woodhouse, an associate professor of geography and regional development.
Meko and Woodhouse collected tree-ring samples to recreate the climate history of the region. In the article, they discuss how the 20th century, one of the wettest centuries in the last thousand years, masked how arid the region can truly be. Major droughts, in fact, helped bring about the collapse of past civilizations in the Southwest.
Swetnam points out how fire suppression and climate changes are altering the sky island mountaintops in the Southwest, with a focus on the aftermath of the Bullock and Aspen fires that ravaged southern Arizona's Santa Catalina mountains.
The online version of the story, which was written by Robert Kunzig with photographs by Vincent Lafore, is now available, with the print version coming in just a few days. National Geographic is published in 31 languages and is read by more than 50 million people around the world each month.
et cetera
- Extra Info | National Geographic Story
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