Study finds California's desert trees vulnerable to heat stress.
Rising temperatures and prolonged drought have caused piñon pines and juniper trees to seek refuge at higher elevations in the deserts north of Palm Springs, leading to a wholesale shift towards weed species. The study offers a vision of where other ecosystems with cooler, wetter conditions are potentially headed. The result of this change is a "leakier" ecosystem, one far less able to capture and retain carbon than the woodlands. The fate of these landscapes is politically fraught right now as the Western states battle over future allotments of the shrinking Colorado River and turn to irreplaceable groundwater to replace it.