California's Wildfires Threaten Carbon-Storing Pine Forests.

Ponderosa pine forests in California's Sierra Nevada that were decimated by western pine beetles during the 2012-2015 megadrought won't recover to pre-drought densities, reducing an important storehouse for atmospheric carbon. Climate change-driven beetle outbreaks will continue to occur, limiting forest regeneration after the drought. Forests sequester more than a tenth of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but when beetles come with the higher temperatures of climate change, their populations develop more rapidly, releasing carbon back to the atmosphere through microbial decay.