USGS - NM Mountain Forests Not Regrowing After Fires In Past 15 Years; Grass, Shrubs Replacing Them

When the smoke finally clears and new plant life pokes up from the scorched earth after the wildfires raging in the southern Rockies, what emerges will look radically different than what was there just a few weeks ago. According to Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey in Los Alamos, N.M., forests in the region have not been regenerating after the vast wildfires that have been raging for the last decade and a half.

Dr. Allen, who runs the Jemez Mountains Field Station at Bandelier National Monument, says those forests are burning into oblivion and grasslands and shrub lands are taking their place. “Rising temperature is going to drive our forests off the mountains,” he said.

During two presentations at environmental conferences in Aspen, over the weekend and on Monday morning, Dr. Allen sketched a bleak picture of how climate change is redrawing Southwestern landscapes.

Using data from tree ring studies, scientists have reconstructed a history of fires in the Southwest. The wildfires of the past were frequent and massive, but they stayed close to the ground and mainly helped prevent overcrowding. Take 1748. “Every mountain range we studied in the region was burning that year,” Dr. Allen said. “But those were surface fires, not destroying the forest but just keeping an open setting.” Cyclical wildfires were the norm.

EDIT

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/goodbye-to-mountain-forests/?ref=earth