Responding to a spate of tree die-offs around the world, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have created a kind of outdoor intensive care unit for trees in which climate conditions are exaggerated in order to speed up a tree's death, according to The New York Times.
"By speeding up aspects of climate change-more heat, less water-[researcher Nate McDowell] hopes to document every spike in their coffin. And then do an autopsy," The Times wrote.
The experiment, which involves building a Plexiglas and metal silo around the tree in order to control environmental conditions and monitor the tree's reactions, aims to test two hypotheses: whether trees die of thirst or they starve to death. "Exactly how these processes occur, and how they relate, remains to be shown with scientific rigor," The Times wrote.
Mechanical devices attached to the chambers pump warm air into the chambers in an effort to mimic a 7-degree temperature increase expected near Los Alamos over the next seven years. Some trees are deprived of water. All the while researchers are collecting the tree's vitals.
