All of these are real-world examples of rapid tree decline. For homeowners in pine beetle infested areas it is effecting industry and jobs, property values and even the power of local government to enforce tree preservation.

According to an October 1st article in the New York Times, dozens of tree habitats showing signs of accelerated stress and massive degradation.

Scientists are struggling to predict how serious large-scale forest decline may become. What is at stake is the timetable of climate change. This timetable is what drive policy for infrastructure changes and clean energy adoption.

The current consensus is that we can wait until midcentury, gradually phasing in cleaner energies to reduce emissions. Scientists also believe that by then, man made carbon control solutions will be feasible.

However accelerated forest decline would jeopardize that time table for one main reason. Trees are one of two main long term storage depots for stored carbon, the ocean being the second. Upset that fragile balance, could we create a tipping point from which we can’t return.

Trees serve to store carbon dioxide through the creation of wood and leaves. The inner bark layers effectively hold the carbon dioxide until the tree dies or is cut down.

While other plants may absorb carbon dioxide, most of it is returned to the atmosphere through decaying, burning or be eaten. Scientists estimate that during the northern hemisphere growing season 120 billion tons of carbon are inhaled from atmosphere. They exhale nearly the same amount.

However that can change in a heartbeat. Uncontrolled forest fires like the ones we’ve seen in Arizona this year not only burn trees but create huge carbon dioxide release events.

This contributes to further warming of the Earth as a whole, but may be felt sooner within a microclimate, say a national forest. In British Columbia and other pine beetle effected areas, mountain pine beetle attack has changed local weather patterns.

Even with recent insect epidemics, trees are still packing in a billion tons of carbon into long-term storage every year. Another unexpected finding is that forests appear to be growing more vigorously, even old-growth mature forests.

This development has overturned decades “ecological dogma.”

Studies by Harvard University have discovered that every forest has a carbon flux which is the amount of carbon dioxide that is being inhaled and exhaled. They have isolated variances throughout the day.

As we know more about the respiration process of trees we may be able to find ways to complement it.

Scientists skeptical of human influence on climate believe that these trends may represent a greening of the earth over the next 50 years not a large-scale degradation. As the Earth warms more trees will grow bigger and absorb more carbon.
After all, after clear cutting by early settlers, Eastern US forests are regrowing and recovering forest is an important carbon sponge.

However as the Earth warms it also helps many of their natural insect predators survive longer as well.

The mountain pine beetle’s natural predator is the cold. Temperatures of -40° Fahrenheit in the Canadian and US Rockies used to kill off large portions of the beetle population. However, over the past decade temperatures are just not reached that level on a consistent basis.

Furthermore warming may actually evaporate more water, especially in semi arid climates meaning the trees have less water to work with which could make the, them more vulnerable to insect and weather events.

As long as this trend continues, shuttered saw mills and declining tourist business is effecting communities and will continue to spread.

“If the tree is beautifully healthy an enormous flow of resin will push it out, foresters’s says it’sbeing pitched out, pitch tossing the beetle out that is the natural defense of the tree,” said Jeff Mitton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at CU – Boulder.

If a tree is healthy there are documented cases of it pitching out two thousand beetles. On the flipside, struggling, drought stressed trees have been documented being killed by as few as a couple dozen beetles according to Mitton.

This current beetle epidemic is 10 times larger than the second largest in history.

Mitton said that the bark beetle lifecycle has really changed. Two to three decades ago the bark beetle started coming out July and then stopped around the second or third week of August. The offspring would get out at about the same time. Mitton’s team found that bark beetles are starting much much earlier.

They caught the first beetles in 2010 on May 22 and the last beetles September 20. That means the season is twice as long as to used to be.

Also offspring are emerging within two months not 12 months later like they used to be.

I spoke with an arborist who charges around $200 per pine to prevent pine beetle. That would be for a tree roughly 30 inches DBH.

According to a press release, the product is only available through licensed professionals. We also heard from a person in Colorado who received a quote for $400 epr tree to do this type of treatment.
So shop around.

Let us know how this works for you. We are testing it as well. Many tests have been done on its path to approval so we are optimistic that it will be a new weapon in protecting your valuable pines.

WOBURN, Mass., April 11, 2011 — Many states now have a new tool in their pest management arsenal; today Arborjet (http://www.arborjet.com) announced that TREE-age® insecticide received expanded label approval from the EPA to control several invasive species such as Western Pine Beetle, Mountain Pine Beetle and other associated Engraver Beetles.

Arborists, landscapers and city officials in cities like Milwaukee and Chicago have used TREE-age to treat tens of thousands of trees to protect their urban forests against the invasive pest known as Emerald Ash Borer. By injecting TREE-age directly into the tree’s vascular system, it not only provides protection quickly, but it is also highly effective in treating insects that feed under the bark. Arborjet trunk injection also seals the applied insecticide in the tree, thus limiting exposure of the chemical to the environment.

“The expanded label for TREE-age will change forest management practices forever,” said Russ Davis, President and Chief Operating Officer of Arborjet. “It’s great news for landscapers, arborists and municipalities, who until now have struggled with the inability to control many highly invasive insects.”

TREE-age is applied through the Arborjet injection system where the formulation is sealed inside the tree, and unlike many other treatments, TREE-age provides up to two years of control for insects like Mountain Pine Beetle.

Of the 1.16 million impacted acres across the state, 245,000 of them are in Routt County, according to the aerial research conducted in 2008 by the U.S. and Colorado State forest services.

Jackson County is a close second with 234,620 impacted acres. Statewide, the surveys revealed 400,000 acres where mountain pine beetle had not been previously recorded in recent years.

Although there are 1.16 million impacted acres still existing in Colorado, the 2008 aerial survey results bring the cumulative number of acres in Colorado impacted by the current mountain pine beetle epidemic to 1.9 million.

“There’s some sense that the worst is over. My thoughts on that would be that, sure, maybe we’re going to see a declining number of acres from here on out. But my observations are that, for some people, their problems are just beginning,” said John Twitchell, a Steamboat Springs-based forester with the Colorado Forest Service. “In the sense of dealing with dead and dying trees, that’s going to continue for years to come.”

Colorado’s pine forests – along with those throughout the Rocky Mountain West – are in the grip of an unprecedented mountain pine beetle epidemic that began in about 1996. The survey also showed concerning levels of spruce beetle activity and aspen decline.

“The aerial survey gives our managers a landscape view of areas of concern where we can focus projects and research,” Rick Cables, regional forester for the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Region, said in a news release. “Epidemics that affect the forest on a landscape level, like the mountain pine beetle, require a strong and coordinated effort among all of those impacted by this infestation.”

Primary concerns, Twitchell said, are the wildfire hazards presented by so many dead and dry trees, and the danger of falling trees.

“It’s happening almost immediately that trees are starting to fall,” said Twitchell, adding that residents and visitors “shouldn’t be surprised” to see more trail and campground closures in 2009 as crews work to clear the most hazardous dead pines.

Although the current epidemic predominantly is in lodgepole pines west of the Continental Divide in Eagle, Grand, Jackson, Routt and Summit counties, Front Range counties such as Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin and Larimer also are beginning to see epidemic-level beetle populations in high-elevation lodgepoles. To a lesser degree, mountain pine beetles also are attacking and killing ponderosa, limber and bristlecone pines.

The 2008 aerial survey also revealed aspen decline on 542,000 acres statewide. While a concern, Twitchell said the figure might sound more dramatic than it actually is. Although pine trees visibly hit by the mountain pine beetle are doomed, aspen trees can recover from low to moderate levels of decline. Also, Twitchell said that based on his observations locally, aspen decline has been coupled with strong regeneration.

“I’d be more discouraged if I didn’t see a lot of regeneration,” said Twitchell, who also noted that aspens are expected to take over much of the space being vacated by lodgepole pines. “That’s a good thing. Young aspen grows fast.”

Spruce beetles – which killed much of the older spruce population in Routt and Jackson counties from 2001 to 2004 – were detected on 64,000 acres in 2008, mostly in the southwest corner of the state.

The pine beetle has already destroyed approximately 13 million hectares of Canadian forests worth an estimated $6 billion