We were pushing through head-high willows along a brushy caribou trail, five days into our week-long trek across Alaska鈥檚 Noatak valley, when my hiking partner, Brad Meiklejohn, startled me with a command.

鈥淪top!鈥� he said. 鈥淟ook to your left.鈥�

I froze鈥攏obody wants to hear a warning like that a hundred miles from the nearest road in the Arctic wilderness鈥攁nd turned slowly, expecting to see our seventh and closest grizzly bear. Instead, I saw a chest-high white spruce tree.

The tree鈥檚 presence sparked concern of a totally different nature. It was growing in an area that, for thousands of years, had been too cold and inhospitable to sustain spruce trees of any size or species. And yet, here it was, healthy, strong, standing upright like a Christmas tree. The spruce鈥檚 presence was yet another sign of the long-term effects of climate warming on our planet.

Humanity鈥檚 climate-driven impacts show up most sharply at the remote ends of Earth: Antarctica, Greenland, the Tibetan Plateau, and other places with extreme environments. In the United States, the impact is clearest in the 35-million-acre complex of wildlife refuges and national parklands of the Brooks Range in Alaska. The climate here is warming three times faster than the global average.

For the last four years, the National Science Foundation has funded a collaborative project among the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA), Amherst College, and Alaska Pacific University (APU) to study how spruce forests shift northward. The project was the idea of Paddy Sullivan, a research scientist at UAA, who wanted to uncover the role of soil nutrients (NPK) in tree line鈥檚 response to warming. The other partners are Becky Hewitt, an assistant professor at Amherst, who measures the soil fungi that provide tree roots with nutrients; Paddy鈥檚 postdoctoral researcher Colin Maher, who organizes and analyzes the data; and my grad student Russell Wong, who has collected more data in the field than the rest of us combined. I am a professor at APU, and my primary duty on the project is comparing historical aerial photos to recent satellite scenes to measure how fast spruce trees have advanced over the last four decades. But I get out, too.

Our field study focuses on 700 white spruce trees spread along 1,500 miles of mountains between Canada and the Chukchi Sea. Russell, Colin, and I have each been to nearly all 700 trees to set up experiments and collect data. Besides investigating the role of NPK in spruce growth at tree line, we install soil and air temperature dataloggers; collect tree rings; count cones, trees, and shrubs; characterize adjacent vegetation; and look for seedlings.

Our crew usually numbers about half a dozen, with APU undergrads, alums, other scientists, and even old adventure partners joining in as we walk and packraft, relying on air support to pre-place caches. We spend a month or two each summer covering 200-400 miles, although last year, with additional funding by NASA and the Explorers Club, we covered 900. 鈥淧ixel walking,鈥� we call it, because the vegetation data we collect informs the satellites that detect change. Since the 1970s, satellites have detected 鈥済reening鈥� in the Arctic, but just what the greening is must be determined from the ground.

We see firsthand the direct and indirect effects of the changing climate: permafrost slumps, drained lake beds, drying wetlands, drowning forests, creeks stained orange by iron crusts on stream-bottom rocks. We walk through beautiful landscapes, eerily empty of birds, mammals, and even mosquitoes, all for reasons yet unknown, but their population declines are worryingly coincident with rapid warming. In the western Brooks Range we dodge pushy grizzlies left hungry as an important food source, the Arctic ground squirrel, dwindle. The vegetation change is the most dramatic: tussocks drying up and dying; willow bushes doubling in height in the last five years; and, rarely seen before, 鈥渕illennial鈥� spruce, those that have germinated in the last 30 years, growing miles from any adult tree.

In July 2019, I was just back home from pixel-walking across the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, entering field counts of seedlings onto spreadsheets, when I noted that a gap in field sites had left the pattern fuzzy. Hunched over and squinting at a detailed proprietary website of satellite scenes, I sorted through decades of imagery, and stumbled on a sharp, cloud-free, black-and-white image.

On a tributary of the upper Noatak, north of the Brooks Range divide that separates the boreal forest from Arctic tundra, were crisp shadows on snow. I couldn鈥檛 believe my eyes. The scene from late March 2018 showed what looked like spruce trees precisely where鈥攁ccording to a 2002 paper published in Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research鈥攏one had grown since before the last glacial maximum, 20,000 years ago.

I called my longtime friend Brad听and asked him to join me for a six-day walk followed by a two-day pack raft. Brad, a prolific packrafter with a master鈥檚 in botany, has been visiting the Brooks Range every year for three decades.

Seeing the spruce tree, Brad and I looked at each other.

鈥淗oly shit, a spruce,鈥� I said. 鈥淣orth of the divide!鈥�

鈥淲hat does that mean?鈥� he asked.

鈥淚t means that those shadows on the satellite images are spruce trees. These spruce trees are reproducing and spreading where they haven鈥檛 been for thousands of years.鈥�

鈥淚s that surprising?鈥�

鈥淲ell, no. And yes. For 30 years鈥揳bout how long it takes spruce to grow enough to produce cones鈥損eople have been expecting climate change to push trees into tundra. But nobody鈥檚 really seen it yet!鈥�

The 2002 paper had assumed that there were no spruce trees in the upper Noatak basin, because nobody had seen them. The area is so remote people rarely pass through, even then not noticing what they don鈥檛 expect.

I slipped off my pack, pulled out a tape measure, and handed Brad a notebook and pen.

I measured the sapling鈥檚 height, dropped to my knees, and began calling out the annual increments between bud-scars. Bud-scars, like external tree-rings arrayed at the top of a tree, encircle its stem marking the end of each year鈥檚 growing season. They offer a convenient way to estimate recent growth rates.

鈥淥K: 1.53 meters tall. This year: 30 centimeters. Last year: 20 centimeters. Umm, 2017: 23 centimeters. 2016: 18 centimeters,鈥� I said.

The tree was a millennial, for sure, no more than 20 years old, and it had tripled in听height over the last five years. This fast-growing tree was not struggling, like trees beyond tree line, but thriving.

We searched hard for more spruce in the tundra before heading into the Kobuk drainage, where we鈥檇 spend a night, then over another pass, returning to the Noatak basin in the morning.

Descending into the Kobuk we found no spruce above the thickets of alders and willows that grow beyond tree line. Maybe that sapling was an anomaly, I thought. Maybe there wasn鈥檛 really an invasion of tundra by spruce. Still, we hadn鈥檛 yet reached the area from the snowy satellite scenes.

The next day in blowing rain we fought through a jungle of willows and then, busting free of the brush at last and miles from any forest, entered the alpine zone of heather, moss, and lichen, and climbed toward the Kobuk-Noatak divide. That was when I spotted a cluster of hip- to knee-high millennials 听in the alpine tundra. These young spruce trees听had 鈥渏umped鈥� over head-high thickets of willows and alders and were essentially growing side-by-side with typical alpine plants, miles away and hundreds of vertical feet above spruce forests.

We geo-tagged photos of the trees and followed a line of young ones to the pass. Their numbers thinned as we reached the crest, then slowly increased as we descended into the Noatak basin. The millennials looked nothing like the scraggly dwarf trees a hiker finds at tree line in the Sierras, Rockies, or on Mount Washington. No, these trees looked as if they were being cultivated for Christmas duty: symmetrical, full, and with bright young growth at their tips.

Three miles beyond the pass and further north of the boreal-Arctic divide than any trees yet, we spotted a grove of adults and hurried over. Among the dozen trees standing ten t0 15 feet tall were some with cones. Scattered in the adults鈥� 鈥渟eed shadows鈥� were more millennials. I was shocked and, as a scientist, thrilled: here were adult trees producing cones, and young trees growing rapidly everywhere (later, with the expertise of Paddy and Colin, we鈥檇 learn that most of these adult trees were seedlings in the 1970s). As we walked, we saw thousands of spruce, a classic example of a rapidly growing population, a climate-driven invasion of tundra.

I felt compelled to stop and take measurements, to count, map and photograph as many as I could. But we still had 50 miles to walk and another 50 to packraft.

I knew I鈥檇 need to return with my crew to measure tree heights and ages, collecting data for statistical models to predict heights based on shadow length and ages based on height. The scientific community would want to know how far north the trees had spread, and how old the farthest northward trees might be. That way we could calculate their 鈥渕igration rate鈥� and estimate just when they had 鈥渏ump-dispersed鈥� over the mountains to get an idea of how fast boreal forests are moving in response to the accelerated warming of the Arctic climate.

I returned to those spruce woodlands with my grad student Russell and friend Ray Koleser, who had worked for 30 years as a forester. Together we听collected tree cores, heights, and other data to calculate ages of thousands of adult trees over eight feet tall.

We estimate that a handful of seeds blew on winter winds from the Kobuk forests to the Noatak tundra during the early 1900s, carried over the mountains, skipping on snow. Once these earliest colonists matured and produced seeds, more trees grew, but slowly, particularly as it cooled during the 1950s. It wasn鈥檛 until the abrupt warming in the 1970s that this spruce population exploded, doubling every ten years and sending the latest recruits northwards a quarter mile per year.

These trees, encouraged by warmth, will further warm their surroundings. Their dark foliage absorbs sunlight, warming the air and ground. The warming of once carbon-rich tundra soils will increase decomposition, release more carbon dioxide, and so lead to more warming. Just as over the last 30 years, more sea-ice will melt, more open water will linger through the fall, adding moisture to the air and leading to the deepening winter snows that have already reduced the populations of ground squirrels, Dall sheep, and moose.

While weather changes from hour to hour and day to day, with some years warmer or wetter than others, the trends and changes that take place over decades and centuries are climatic ones. When every year brings an extreme event, they are no longer extreme. Never in civilization鈥檚 recorded history have changes as fundamental and drastic occurred so rapidly for so long.

Trees, whose lives advance at a pace similar to our own, signal that the Earth is changing in a long-term way. Just as we exhausted seemingly inexhaustible herds of buffalo and flocks of passenger pigeons, then polluted and depleted seemingly endless supplies of freshwater and clean air, we have now initiated a seemingly impossible feat: changing Earth鈥檚 climate.

Shifting forests that are advancing to the north while the southern edges are dying from fires, insects, and disease should give us pause. They tell us that big, long-lasting changes are underway. We may not be able to stop the changes, but we can slow them, and not by asking others to change their ways, but ourselves to change ours.

As published in Nature

Our research, 听was one of a handful of studies published in the scientific journal Nature this summer. The studies, in areas ranging from the Amazon to the Arctic, show climate鈥檚 effects on forests. See also: by Dow et al, by Reich et al, by Cunha et al, by Forzieri et al, and by Bauman et al.

See also NASA鈥檚 on changing sea ice concentrations, illustrating the breakdown in one of Earth鈥檚 air-conditioning systems.

The post Spruce Trees Are Invading the Arctic. Here鈥檚 What That Means for Our Planet. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Editor鈥檚 note: While Roman Dial鈥檚 son鈥檚 full name was Cody Roman Dial, he also went by Roman.听In the below text, Roman听refers to Cody Roman, not his father.听

While Roman was exploring the cultures, mountains, and jungles of Central America, I was finishing up home projects and making short day trips and planning a long pack-rafting trip in the nearby Talkeetna Mountains in Alaska. I enjoyed hearing about Roman鈥檚 trips via email, but looked forward to having him home. When he鈥檇 written that he鈥檇 been bitten by a dog in Nicaragua and worried it had rabies, I鈥檇 even thought to ask him if maybe it was time to come back. But I didn鈥檛.

It had been gratifying to me as his father to see him out on his own. He would return world-wise and confident with a broader view of life. His Spanish would be excellent. His view on economics听and the role of the United States in Latin America would be better informed. It was also clear that his adventures had grown naturally from his upbringing: our family trips to Australia, Borneo, Alaska鈥檚 wilderness, and elsewhere. I wanted to hear his stories, perspectives, and insights firsthand.

On July 14, home from a Talkeetna Mountains pack-rafting trip with my friend Gordy Vernon, I scanned Roman鈥檚 last email from Costa Rica:听鈥淥K, I found what seems to be the best map yet.鈥�听Unpacking and catching up, I read no further. But buried in the thread鈥攗nseen for another week鈥攚as his email that said he was 鈥減lanning on doing 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out.鈥� We鈥檇 been emailing about 鈥渟uper-secret鈥澨齮opo maps of Central America. The two threaded emails seemed part of that conversation. I didn鈥檛 read past 鈥渢he best map yet.鈥� If I had, then I would have known he planned to be out from his Corcovado trip the very next day.

July 15 was his out date.

The summer of 2014 was sunny in Anchorage and my wife听Peggy and I kept busy. We worked on house projects until peak salmon season, then drove to the Kenai Peninsula to dip-net fish for our freezer. We camped on the beach where the milky-blue Kenai River slides into the glacier-gray Cook Inlet and the sea breeze keeps July鈥檚 mosquitoes at bay. Beneath a clear sky and sunshine, we enjoyed the views of mountains rising above fishing boats plowing back to port, their holds full of freshly caught sockeye听salmon. The reds were running strong and people lined up shoulder to shoulder, standing in the river, their long-handled nets straining against the current as they excitedly pulled in fish when they felt a gentle bump in their net. We saw friends and filled our coolers with shiny sockeyes.

Still, it nagged at us that we hadn鈥檛 yet heard from Roman. I checked my phone for new emails as often as the spotty coverage on the Kenai allowed. Nothing. It had been six months since I鈥檇 seen him. He hadn鈥檛 told me exactly when he would be back from Latin America, but I hoped to have him home soon. I missed him.

Peggy and I returned from fishing on July 18, cleaned the 20听salmon we鈥檇 caught, and set to work finishing a siding project on our house. Days crept by. Still no word. We weren鈥檛 alarmed, just a bit surprised. Hardly a fortnight would pass since Veracruz (a听city in Mexico where he had traveled earlier in the year)听when we wouldn鈥檛 hear something from Roman. On July 21鈥�12听days after he had last written鈥擨 sent a gentle reminder: 鈥淟et me know when you get out.鈥� His email linked to the one starting with 鈥渢he best map yet鈥� sat unread in my inbox.

On July 23, Peggy and I wandered between fasteners and paint at Lowes, wondering aloud to each other why we had heard nothing from Roman. Two weeks had passed. The longest stretch he鈥檇 gone without contacting us after Veracruz had been ten days, during his trips across El Pet茅n and La Moskitia, wild regions in Guatemala and Honduras, respectively, where he had traveled in between Veracruz and听Costa Rica. We were worried now.

鈥淚 need to look at his last email again,鈥� I told Peggy. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 really read it carefully and I鈥檓 not sure what he wrote. It seems like it was just about maps.鈥�

Then and there in Lowes Home Improvement, Peggy felt nauseous. We left empty-handed to drive straight home and read his emails carefully. I opened the July 9 thread where the words听鈥渉eading in off-trail tomorrow . . . 4 days in the jungle and a day to walk out鈥� spilled across my screen. My face went numb.听

Oh听no! He鈥檚 way overdue鈥攆uck!

I should have been paying closer attention!

Shock washed over me. Then guilt. Guilt over the fact that I hadn鈥檛 read his email thoroughly, that I hadn鈥檛 given him the attention he deserved. That, maybe, like Peggy pointed out in nearly every argument, I spent too much time on my own trips, on my own interests.

鈥淧eggy. This email says he should have been done, like鈥濃�擨 struggled with the arithmetic鈥斺�渓ike, ten days ago! Something鈥檚 wrong!鈥� I turned to her. Her forehead tightened, cheeks slack. She saw my terror; it increased her own.

We jumped into action. She slid me a notebook and pen across the table, then got on the phone and called our daughter听Jazz. I set to work on the computer, my hands shaking. Fighting panic and rising nausea, I Googled Corcovado National Park guides, looking for someone to help us.

My Spanish too poor to call, I shot off an email to Osa Corcovado Tours.

My name is Roman Dial and my son, Cody Roman Dial, age 27, is missing in Corcovado National Park. He is about 177 cm tall (5 feet 10 inches), with blue eyes, brown hair and glasses. He weighs about 63 kg (140 lbs). He should have a blue two-person tent.
He has been traveling for several months in Central America and doing treks in the jungle, always without a guide.
He emailed us on 9 July and said that he was heading into Corcovado National Park on 10 July for five days alone. He should have returned ten days ago, and he always reports back to us. But we have heard nothing and now are worried.
He wrote that he would be hiking off-trail to the east of the Los Patos to听Sirena Trail. He said he鈥檇 be walking about 5 km a day for 20 km off trail, following the Rio Conte up, then crossing the mountains over to the Rio Claro and follow听that to the coast.
Again he said he would be gone for 5 days and that was almost 14 days ago. Can you please advise me what I can do or how we might look for him? I do not speak Spanish, but perhaps I could call someone and speak on the phone? Attached is a photo from two years ago.

The first picture of Roman I found was from Bhutan. Smiling at the camera, he鈥檚 a little pudgy, with a bit of beard, short hair, and wire-rimmed glasses, wearing a blue shirt. My arm is around him, hand on his shoulder. I attached the photo and 鈥渢he best map yet鈥澨齛nd hit send.

I bought an airplane ticket to leave the next day for Costa Rica. I could not stay in Alaska. I would not leave the search up to others. He was my son. My responsibility was to him. Part of the Alaskan creed is that we take care of our own. I had been on enough rescues to know our system worked. Roman had sent me his plans and a map because he knew that if something happened to him, I would come get him.

I had introduced him to the tropics, to wilderness, to world travel. No one knew better what Roman might do. But I needed experienced, reliable help we could trust. I called Gordy. A world traveler himself, he once lost six fingertips when he quit his own attempt at the summit of Mount Everest to rescue another climber on the mountain. He had also lost his father and two siblings in a tragic airplane accident.

Gordy went silent for a minute when I told him the news. He鈥檇 been on the Grand Canyon trip with Roman and me. He appreciated Roman鈥檚 toughness, wit, and modesty.

Gordy鈥檚 voice was slow and measured, fighting back emotion. 鈥淣ah, Roman, my Spanish just isn鈥檛 good enough for something like that. You鈥檒l be better off with Thai.鈥� Thai Verzone, his Wilderness Classic partner and prot茅g茅, had been both a Latin American studies major in college and a mountain guide in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. He speaks Spanish fluently.

Gordy went on. 鈥淵ou know, what I would do is get hold of Roman鈥檚 bank records. Those might say a lot about where he was, and where he was going.鈥� This advice from a close friend helped. Peggy would try over the coming days, but it took years in the end to get the records.

I called Thai. 鈥淭hai鈥� Roman鈥檚 missing in Costa Rica.鈥澨�

鈥淲丑补迟?鈥�

鈥淵eah, he wrote he鈥檇 be gone on a five-day trip in Corcovado, but he鈥檚 like ten days overdue!鈥�

鈥淥h shit鈥攖en days!鈥�

鈥淟isten, can you go down there with me? I need you. I鈥檓 leaving tomorrow and could really use your Spanish and jungle skills.鈥�

Thai鈥檚 wife, Ana, had just had their baby, Maia, three months before. Thai helped Ana at home and worked at the hospital.

Peggy knew how useful Thai would be with language, wilderness, and people. She quickly volunteered: 鈥淚 can watch Maia for Ana while Thai goes with you.鈥�

I relayed this to Thai. 鈥淧eggy says she can help Ana with Maia if you can come.鈥�

鈥淟et me check with Ana and the clinic, but I鈥檓 pretty sure I can do it. How long will we go for?鈥� Thai had his own life.

鈥淚f you could come down for ten days, that鈥檇 be great. Thai, I really need your help.鈥�

Panic inched up my gorge. I choked it down. Calmness thinks clearly.听

I was terrified that Roman, lost and broken in the jungle, waited for me to come get him. Hadn鈥檛 he given me very explicit directions and a map, after all?听

I called the U.S. embassy in San Jos茅, worried it might be closed. A recording said, 鈥淧ush two for life and death.鈥�

I pushed two. A voice answered and said something about a duty officer, then gave me a Mr. Zagursky鈥檚 email. I scribbled it in my notebook, then emailed the photo, map, and information to him. I found an email address for the Puerto Jim茅nez police and sent them the same content, adding Gordy鈥檚 suggestion to access Roman鈥檚 bank records. I told them all that I was coming down.

My body crawled with anxiety and a sense of panic held barely at bay. I wanted to be down there right now. Every minute counted. While the tropics might seem hot and idyllic, the rains are cold and the chance of rapid infection is real.

I called my boss at work: 鈥淩oman鈥檚 missing.鈥�

Her response was immediate, empathetic. 鈥淥h, Roman,鈥� she said genuinely, 鈥淚 am so sorry.鈥� As if he were already dead, that I鈥檇 already lost him.

Hurt and angry, I told her, 鈥淚鈥檓 going down to find him and am not sure when I鈥檒l be back.鈥� What I meant was that he wasn鈥檛 dead, that she didn鈥檛 need to be sorry because I would bring him home alive.

That evening听I packed jungle gear. Shoes and shirts and pants and a pack. Compass and headlamp. Stove and a cook pot. Dehydrated food. Bug-net tent and tarp. Sleeping pad and sheet. We would have to move fast. Bring only necessities.

My feelings of shock ebbed, exposing a reef of guilt. He鈥檇 written that he鈥檇 be out on the 15th. I was home then. I should have read his email.听

I should have given him 24听hours, then called Costa Rica on the 16th听to say he was 24听hours overdue, then flown there on the 17th. I could have done that.听

But I didn鈥檛. A full week had passed since I could have flown down. It was impossible not to see him suffering, waiting, wondering, Dad, where are you? I told you where I went. I said I鈥檇 be out in five days. Dad, come get me!

Hoping for the best, I emailed him: 鈥渋 am coming down to look for you.鈥澨齌he subject read 鈥渆mail please!鈥�

My flight left for Atlanta at 8:30 at night on Thursday, July 24. All day I switched from phone to computer, scrambling to put things together. My brain struggled to function as if nothing were wrong while my heart wrested to take control and panic. Peggy, too, called and emailed friends and family, sounding the alarm. Within 24听hours, friends set up a fund and deposited money for our search.

The Tico Times, a Costa Rican English-language newspaper, . People reached out to help. Then听Facebook kicked in. Someone posted on an Osa-specific page about a sighting. I messaged him and he wrote back:

I am 90% sure that I saw your son based on his picture鈥攄id he have a tan safari type outfit (shorts and shirt matching and a hat)? I remember seeing him walking alone along the road and I took him for one of the many volunteers who are always in that area and who never want a ride. I made eye contact with him and he nodded. He was looking into the woods at something that caught his attention. If you want you can call. Hopefully he is simply walking through some tough terrain out in the park and working his way back.

I ached for it to be true. But it couldn鈥檛 be Roman dressed in safari garb, turning down a ride on a road. I knew that it wasn鈥檛. Together we had spent too many months over too many years in too many countries on too many continents for that to be the son I raised.

He was in trouble. I knew.

From the forthcoming book . Copyright 漏 2020 by Roman Dial. To be published on February 18, 2020, by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

Find听国产吃瓜黑料鈥檚 past听coverage of Cody Roman Dial鈥檚 2014听disappearance here听and听here.

The post My Son Went on a Solo Hike and Never Came Home appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.