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Health & Fitness

Tropical Morris

Dead oak brings on thoughts of global warming. What will that mean for Morris Township?

In doing research for another piece I was writing on weather and climate change, it occurred to me to look into what Morris county’s weather has been doing lately.  By lately I mean since 1900 or so.  Generally, it’s warmer and the temperature is going up.  No one can tell you just how high, but on the average things have been going up about a degree every 50 years, until lately when the trend has suddenly taken off.  By one NOAA accounting it went up a full degree in the last 10 years.

We really only have a hundred or so years to work with, but that’s the trend since 1900.  Big Whoop right?  I’ve lived here more than 30 years and it’s only gotten up to over 100 in the summer two or three times I think. Of course it’s seems to be staying up there longer each time. Even though we’ve already crossed that line this spring, all those times have all been in the last 6 or 7 years.  Does that mean anything besides rising air conditioning bills?

One of the things that got me thinking about this was a great big oak that died in my front yard.  At close to 65 feet tall it’s a real pain to have it suddenly emerge from winter dead as a doornail.  Oh, the joys of home ownership!  A tree that big, that’s about 20 feet from the house demands some attention.  It’s two and a half foot diameter trunk would have no trouble turning our house to matchwood.  I’m thinking about hurricane season.  With the all-time record setting tornado season this year, what’s August and September going to be like?

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While it’s not going to fall down tomorrow (I hope) we have to deal with it pretty soon.  That’s means a call to one of the many local tree services, so on to Angie’s list I went.  There are a lot of highly rated tree services around here, because frankly, this is the Northeast and we know a lot about trees around here.

The current line of opinion among the professional arborist community is that last year’s drought killed my tree.  I hadn’t really thought about it, but in checking I found out this year the north of NJ is getting more rain fall and the south is getting less.  Too bad my 100+ year old tree couldn’t hold on, the big quitter.

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Of course it’s probably pretty normal to have trouble remembering last year’s drought. It’s no wonder that we have so much trouble getting our heads around something like global warming.  So what if the mean temperature goes up 2 and a half degrees over the last century? I mean how long should I wait before replacing that oak with a palm tree?  Actually, since the North Pole was supposed to last until at least 2030 and now they think it’ll be gone by 2013, maybe I should get one in a pot right away.  Weathermen!  Gee whiz.

So what does happen in Morris county as the temperature rises?  More weeds and more mosquitoes, probably, and ticks.  But as it turns out that it can be too warm and too cold for oaks like mine, too dry doesn’t help either apparently.  The USGS distribution of White Oaks in the US shows that they don’t like south Florida, Texas or any of the western states.  I think they’ll be around here for a while though, after all they’re doing fine in Alabama and that’s pretty hot.

NOAA predicts 12 to 18 named storms this year and 3 to 6 big ones.  They almost always predict an “above average” season, but then again the weather isn’t getting any better is it?  However, take heart, Morris county hasn’t seen a really big hurricane since 1999.  Our county usually sees them when they are knocked down to “Tropical storm” size, like Floyd was that year.

Still it’s best to take that tree out as soon as possible.  Now the only decision to make is do we grind the stump or put the bird bath on it?

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