Study: Climate change kills yellow cedars

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- U.S. Forest Service researchers have confirmed what has long been suspected about a valuable tree in Alaska's Panhandle: Climate warming is killing off yellow cedar.

The mighty trees can live more than 1,000 years, resisting bugs and rot and even defending themselves against injury, but their shallow roots are vulnerable to freezing if soil is not insulated by snow. And for more than a century, with less snow on the ground, frozen roots have killed yellow cedar on nearly half a million acres in southeast Alaska, plus another 123,000 acres in the adjacent British Columbia province of Canada.