drought

Sequoia National Park under a blanket of white snow on a grey day.

Leaf to Landscape Project

by Save the Redwoods League on

After the fourth consecutive year of severe drought in California, a team of scientists came together in the summer of 2015 to study the impacts of the historic drought on the world’s largest trees, the giant sequoias.

When Giant Sequoia and Drought Don’t Mix

by Emily Burns on

I roamed through a few giant sequoia groves over the last week and did find a few mature giant sequoia that aren’t weathering the four-year drought well. Some of these afflicted giant sequoia simply were shedding leaves and their crowns …

Warming Redwood Weather

by Emily Burns on

Wendy Baxter and Anthony Ambrose from Todd Dawson’s Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley have been tracking weather in the League’s Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative research plots in the coast redwood and giant sequoias forests. Check out their latest weather report …

Green Cones Go Red

by Emily Burns on

Typically, cones mature on the redwood branches in autumn. They turn slightly yellow as the cone scales separate, exposing the seeds hidden within to the elements. Rain then washes away tannic crystals that hold the seeds inside the cones and …

Drought in the Redwoods Makes Headlines

by Emily Burns on

This week, our research partners from UC Berkeley braved the fall heatwave to check on how some old redwood forests are handling the drought in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I joined them among the redwood giants at Henry Cowell State …

Drought Distress

by Emily Burns on

I stumbled across a sea of sword fern that is showing signs of drought during my annual field campaign last month. Along the Damnation Creek Trail at Del Norte Redwoods State Park, the typically green carpet of sword fern was undeniably …

Treetop Drought

by Emily Burns on

With the heatwave we are experiencing in California this week, it’s hard to not think about drought. All this dry weather, combined with below-average rainfall, must pose serious challenges for local trees. What’s amazing to me, is that the fantastically …

Drought in the Redwoods

by Emily Burns on

Last week I traveled northwards up the coast redwood range to check on weather conditions in the forest at Humboldt Redwoods, Prairie Creek, and Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Parks. Through our Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative, we are studying how …

Too dry for redwood sorrel?

by Emily Burns on

I recently walked with a childhood friend through Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, one of the only old coast redwood forests left in Sonoma County. It certainly felt like fall, with the sunlight low in the sky as midday approached. …

RCCI researchers Chris Wong and Wendy Baxter monitor the seedlings. Photo by Anthony Ambrose.

The Seedling-Drought Experiment and Its Surprising Result

by Richard Campbell on

Last week, I spent some time wondering broadly about our recent RCCI results, and just whether we could say for certain that 1) climate change is spurring an increase in redwood growth, and 2) if that change is “good” for …