She is trying to work out how the trees survived four months of darkness each year during the Arctic winters.
She said: "We don't have plants that can survive under those conditions today, let alone forests. For a tree to endure four months of daylight is like you or I going without sleep for four months."
Prof., the four months without light is easy. In NJ the trees drop their leaves for about five months, efectively 'surviving FIVE months of darkness each year'. Her real problem is the way the obvious hugger is anthropomorphizing these dead frozen trees. She will never be happy until she finds out how they suffered.
We are about to test that theory. We test it every summer, and the trees seem to like 4 months of continuous daylight just fine. The don't even mind the 4 months of continuous dark at the other end of the year. They even tolerate frozen ground and start the springtime shoot-growing season at least a month before the ground even thinks about thawing.
We don't have plants that can survive under those conditions today
You've got to be joking. Either this woman is a moron, or she thinks she can fool everyone.
Metasequoias, otherwise known as Water Pines, can be found in a remote area in China TO THIS DAY.
You can even buy them from specialty nurseries on the West Coast.
They are DECIDUOUS conifers, like their relatives the bald cypresses, and unlike the true sequoia and redwood.
I'll bet they don't mind 4 months of darkness, during their dormant phase.
My theory:
The best browsing was right next to a retreating glacier. Abundant ice melt water. Rich tilled soil. Young tender vegetation. Shielded from the north wind by the bulk of the glacial wall. Extra sunlight and warmth reflected off the ice face.
Browse close to the ice face, and when an avalance happens you're pounded into the mud and packed in ice before you can even swallow...
How can that be? I mean, with global warming and all, how could something like that have happened before the SUVs were around to cause it?