climate change

CalFIRE personnel wearing yellow fire jackets managing a prescribed fire stand next to a massive giant sequoia surrounded by burning undergrowth

Helping redwoods fight climate change

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Writer John Steinbeck called redwoods “ambassadors from another time,” while W.E.B. Du Bois described them as “eternal wooden stone with tremendous grip on earth.” We search for words to describe the majesty of the coast redwood and giant sequoia forests, …

Stephen Sillett ventures into the redwood canopy

Discovering the Climate Change Resilience of Coast Redwood Forests

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After a decade studying the impacts of climate change throughout redwood forests, Emily Burns, PhD, and Stephen Sillett, PhD, share new insight into how coast redwood trees are growing today. See the remarkable new findings about second-growth forests.

Fern Watch volunteers at Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve.

Watching Ferns in the Redwoods for Signs of Climate Change

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The sword fern, one of the most common redwood forest plants, has become prominent in my life over the past few years. This is mostly due to the League’s Fern Watch project, which monitors the health of sword ferns throughout the redwood range. Even though these ferns are common, little is known about their ecology and how they respond to climatic change.

High school students get hands-on experience studying climate change in the redwood forest at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.

An Earth Day for Science

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This year’s Earth Day theme was focused on environmental and climate literacy, which means that we need to make sure everyone is educated on the impacts of climate change on our planet and the actions we can take to protect and sustain our environment.

High school students get hands-on experience studying climate change in the redwood forest at Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve.

High School Students as Community Scientists

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If you ask high school students what the impacts of climate change have been, they can tell you that the polar ice caps are melting, that we have extreme weather, and that California has been in a drought for the past few years. But if you ask them how climate change will affect our forests and the plants and animals that live in them, they find it harder to come up with an answer.

Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Photo by Peter Buranzon

Future Coastal Climate Not Cool for Redwood Forests

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In a study published in the research journal Global Change Biology, climate scientists from the University of California and NatureServe conclude that a warmer future with normal rainfall on California’s coast will leave coast redwoods south of San Francisco Bay with significantly different climate than they have experienced for decades.

New Study Provides Coast Redwood Climate Forecast

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Understanding how climate change impacts the world’s tallest forest is like assembling an incredibly large jigsaw puzzle; the full picture emerges slowly, one piece at time. But occasionally, a critical piece falls into place…

Photo courtesy Save the Redwoods League

Redwood Research Proposals Wanted

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Save the Redwoods League uses redwood science to guide our conservation work and we are ready to invest in new studies that will help us save the redwoods. Since 1997, we have supported redwood and giant sequoia forest research on …

A study confirms that northern giant sequoia groves have lower genetic diversity than central and southern groves. Photo by Bob Wick

Lower Genetic Diversity Puts Giants at Risk

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Recent League-funded research by Richard Dodd, an Environmental Science Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms that northern groves (north of the Kings River drainage) have lower genetic diversity than central and southern groves. This could have profound consequences for long-term conservation strategies for the species, especially considering the changing global climate.

Redwood Weather

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  RCCI researcher Wendy Baxter describes below why we are tracking weather in the woods: Monitoring the local weather and long-term climate is an integral part of the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative (RCCI). Beginning in 2011, scientists from UC …

77% of Birds and Climate Change Studies Use Community Science

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This study speaks to the incredible need to continue community science projects because they are critical to learning about the planet in a rapidly changing environment, and the volunteer contributions are significantly pushing the research field ahead.

Small salamanders are having a big impact. Photo by Anthony Ambrose

Salamanders in the News

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It’s not often that salamanders make the New York Times.  But last week, the ‘Science’ section featured an article on a study investigating the role of salamanders in the global carbon cycle. Basically, salamanders are among the top predators in …