Hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in the nation

The Washington Post reports that hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in the nation.

• "New satellite imaging has revealed that hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single     forestry disaster on record in the nation -- an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged about 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana.
  
  "The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by weeks-long pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the global greenhouse gas buildup -- ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the nation's forest takes out in a year of photosynthesis"

Read the story by Marc Kaufman here. 

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