This Map Shows Where All The Trees Are In The US

TBI ^ | 1-`12-2012 | Dina Spector

[blam]

This Map Shows Where All The Trees Are In The US

Dina Spector
Jan. 12, 2012, 2:48 PM

NASA's Earth Observatory just released a map illustrating where all the trees are in America.

The map was created over six years by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of the Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC) in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Geological Survey.

The dark swaths of green represent parts of the country with the greatest concentration of biomass.

You can see dense tree cover in the Pacific Northwest as well New England, which has been reforested after intensive logging in the 18th and 19th centuries.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

When did all the state boundaries change? I’ve been in a lot of meetings this week...did I miss something important?

Can we herd all the libs into those big empty white treeless states in the middle? Or is that where they are building the concentration camps for us?

[decimon]

Culinary Kudzu - Who Knew?

Good. If you can't get rid of it then make use of it.

[vetvetdoug]

Slight snow on the ground here and several places with black ice. Our kids won't get out. I drove up the Trace from Jackson to Tupelo last Sunday and the fog was thick. I didn't see a buck the whole way but several does. On the way down I saw the destruction from the April 11, 2011 tornadoes that hit above Eupora and Houston. It made me sad knowing the kind of tree damage that was done to the old trees there on the Trace. I would be sick if it had hit my property. Its going to be years before that area recovers.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

It is obvious you’re not a Californian. That isn’t brown! What you saw was “golden.”

I’ve been in California almost 40 years and I still haven’t adjusted to everything being “golden” from May to October and then greening up in the winter. My wife (a native California) suffers the reverse problem when we travel east.

[vetvetdoug]

I live on the Northern tip of that Blackland belt and just East of the clear area next to the Tennessee-Tombigbee River area. The area is thick in with wooded areas.

[rlmorel]

Hehe, true enough...:)

Golden!

[Graewoulf]

” - - - I grew up wandering the southern Michigan woods with no fear of running into anything more dangerous than a raccoon. Today we have confirmed black bears, unconfirmed mountain lions, and we’re overrun with coyotes.”

That’s what happens when the Wolves are exterminated.

BTW, Wolves are the ancestor of Man’s best friend, the dog. AAHHHRRHHhhhhhOOO000LLLLL000oooooooooooooooooooo - - - - - - - - - - -

[womanvet]

Wow.

So, there are few trees, if any, in the Plains or deserts? Is anyone surprised by that? Golly, I wonder why they were called Plains and deserts...

[Deaf Smith]

"non-green areas in the map would have been the same 500 or 1000 years ago"

Well, if you don't count the mesquites that the Spaniards gave Texas. The Spaniards brought over mesquite beans to feed their horses while on their walk about.

[MaxMax]

I hear ya. And if they weren't growing all that darn food the trees might have a chance.
:P

[thecodont]

That dark green on the West Coast is Sugar Pine country.

[MadMax, the Grinning Reaper]

To #12: The boat is on its’ way.

[Ditto]

But after a week in a very arid Southern California, it was breathtaking to come home.

After spending some time in the Southwest years ago, I was always king of amazed of how brown every thing was. When back home in Western PA, a met a couple who were from Tucson and they were amazed by how green every thing was.

I guess it boils down to what you are used to.

[familyop]

Your town looks beautiful. My place on the Rockies has about an average (rough surface from winds) foot-thick crust of snow-ice that will probably be here until summer (and probably deeper at times). Wind gusts over 100 mph and temps below 0 last night. No trees here and not many for miles.

[okie01]

I've read (a few years ago)that there are more trees alive in the US today than there was when the Europeans first landed.

And it's true. Every year, Weyerhauser, Georgia-Pacific and the rest plant thousands more trees than they cut.

Moreover, since the first global survey (Surveyor, 1968), the global acreage of forest has increased every single year.

Must be all that CO2...

[txhurl]

I had a mesquite stump with a shoot coming out bearing a 2” thorn that slashed my off-road Michelin like a latex balloon.

As I understand, the Juniper Ash (cedar tree) is also a gift from Spain.

I used to view it as something to be uprooted, burned, chipped until I considered its dewing function.

[Does so]

Maine wins!

A hundred years ago, New Hampshire was burning so much discarded slash in the most distant part of the state that buggy-drivers in Boston couldn't see ahead. The committee that founded the NH Forest Protection Association started in Boston!

"...New England, which has been reforested after intensive logging in the 18th and 19th centuries..."

About 15 years ago, New Hampshire tourism once advertised on the Internet that it was a state "97% trees and 3% 'under water'".

[Does so]

"...When I saw that tree a few years back, I admit there was something awesome about standing there looking at it, just imagining everything that tree had presided over..."

The Joshua Tree of the Southwest is very long-lived—like thousands of years; fortunately, it is not a valuable tree for the market.

"If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden.

If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a tree".

[Does so]

Would love to see what that map would have looked like 300 years ago.

Much second- and third-growth is of less-marketable trees. When I stepped out of a lumber store with White Pine under one arm to finsh a 50-year-old house project, I realized I'd just spent $90 for three boards.

White Pine is a valuable tree where its dropped needles will stop erosion. They are being clearcut by the thousands every year. We have flooding problems in some villages now.

In central New Hampshire, the original White Pine has been replaced by the near-worthless Eastern Hemlock, which crowds out everything else through its deep shade. The decreasing numbers of mature Red Pine and Cedar are almost tourist attractions.

I wanted very much to buy an antique hutch made from Chestnut, only because the tree disappeared from the forests. The buyer of my central Florida home dropped an ancient lakeside Bald Cypress, because he didn't know that those trees drop all their leaves every winter—and thought it was dead. :-/

[cripplecreek]

Its been an extraordinarily warm winter so far but have no fear, its 19 degrees this morning and winter has arrived about a month late.