How a Computer Modeler Predicted the Mountain Pine Beetle Tree-Killing Rampage

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By Scientific American | 14 March 2012 | 210

A handful of scientists had known about the mountain pine beetles' temperature threshold for some time -- had studied it extensively, in fact. After the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its first report in 1990, these scientists began to openly discuss the possibility that near-term changes in global temperatures could push the mountain pine beetle into new reaches of the continent. Then, late in the decade, a Forest Service researcher named Jesse Logan pulled the pieces together. What he produced was a work of rare prescience -- a map of the catastrophe to come. Read More