• lloyd C. Irland
  The Irland Group and UMO, SFR (associate)
  lcirland@gmail.com
  207-685-9613
  

This short essay explains why it is hard to draw conclusions about climate change by measuring forests.  It presents key climate changes that have been measured in the Northeast.  These affect forests only slowly and in ways easily confounded with other factors.  My views on global climate change, its causes and effects, and what ought to be done about it are of no general interest and will not be aired here.  Since climate will change whether we agree on it or not, questions of adaptation do arise, and ought to be reviewed in another article.  In short, changes that we can measure in forests may or may not tell us much about climate change, due to persistent disequilibria, high annual volatility, and numerous confounding factors.  Further, what we can measure about how climate has changed may not enable us to predict how forests will respond.  This is a Zen dilemma.