Researchers move trees in global warming experiment

LOS ANGELES: On naked patches of land in western Canada and United States, scientists are planting trees that don't belong there. It's a bold experiment to move trees threatened by global warming into places where they may thrive amid a changing climate.

Take the Western larch with its thick grooved bark and green needles. It grows in the valleys and lower mountain slopes in British Columbia's southern interior. Canadian foresters are testing how its seeds will fare when planted farther north - just below the Arctic Circle.

Something similar will be tried in the lower 48 US states. Researchers will uproot moisture-loving Sitka spruce and Western redcedar that grace British Columbia's coastal rainforests and drop their seedlings in the dry ponderosa pine forests of Idaho.