Climate change killed off trees in California mountain range, study confirms

Warmer temperatures and longer dry spells have killed thousands of trees and shrubs in a Southern California mountain range, pushing the plants’ habitat an average of 213 feet up the mountain over the past 30 years, a UC Irvine study has determined. The study, by Michael Goulden and Anne Kelly, is the first to show directly the impact of climate change on a mountainous ecosystem by physically studying the location of plants, and it demonstrates what could occur globally if the Earth’s temperature continues to rise. The research appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.