Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb. Here to the almost undeniable evidence that
Speaker 1: climate change is real and inflicting massive damage on our planet,
Speaker 1: we now add another damning bit of substantiation, the sudden
Speaker 1: death of several majestic and ancient African baobab trees. The baobab,
Speaker 1: with its massive, often hollowed out trunk, shiny fibrous bark,
Speaker 1: and high, gnarly branches that resemble roots, is scattered throughout
Speaker 1: African savannahs. It's an odd looking tree. One legend has
Speaker 1: it that a god threw it out of paradise and
Speaker 1: it landed upside down on Earth, where it continued to grow.
Speaker 1: The baobabs, known colloquially as wooden elephants or upside down trees,
Speaker 1: are used by many African peoples for a host of reasons.
Speaker 1: Some people's in Tanzania and Kenya use pulp from the
Speaker 1: wood to make beer. The trees bark can provide a
Speaker 1: variety of uses, including rope, harness straps, mats, snares, and
Speaker 1: fishing lines, cloth, musical instrument strings, tethers, bedsp ings, and
Speaker 1: bow strings. In both Senegal and Ethiopia. The fibers are
Speaker 1: woven into waterproof hats. They may also serve as drinking vessels,
Speaker 1: and the fiber is the best for making the famous
Speaker 1: Kiondo baskets of Kenya. It's a tree that can live,
Speaker 1: by conservative estimates, to two thousand years old, but a
Speaker 1: June study in the journal Nature Plants reveals some alarming
Speaker 1: news about the species. Nine of thirteen oldest baobabs, five
Speaker 1: of the six largest trees that researchers examined over the
Speaker 1: past twelve years, have now died. The reasons for the
Speaker 1: sudden die off are as yet unclear, but climate change
Speaker 1: induced drought is the top suspect. Let me quote from
Speaker 1: the study, the deaths of the majority of the oldest
Speaker 1: and largest African baobabs over the past twelve years is
Speaker 1: an event of an unprecedented magnitude. These deaths were not
Speaker 1: caused by an epidemic, and there's also been a rapid
Speaker 1: increase in the apparently natural deaths of many other mature baobabs.
Speaker 1: We suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated,
Speaker 1: at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions
Speaker 1: that affect Southern Africa, in particular, it's strange and unprecedented
Speaker 1: that so many trees that live for so long would
Speaker 1: succome at the same time. The studies authors point out
Speaker 1: that more research is needed to find a definitive cause.
Speaker 1: But as Erica Wise, the head of the Climate and
Speaker 1: Tree Ring Environmental Science Research Group at the University of
Speaker 1: North Carolina, told The Atlantic, when around of your one thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred to two thousand year old trees died within
Speaker 1: twelve years, it is certainly not normal. It's difficult to
Speaker 1: come up with a culprit other than climate change. The Baobab,
Speaker 1: it should be pointed out, is not easy to kill either.
Speaker 1: It's a legendary for its ability to withstand fire and
Speaker 1: the stripping of its bark. Here's what the agro Forestry
Speaker 1: Database has to say about it. The thick, fibrous bark
Speaker 1: is remarkably fire resistant, and even if the interior is
Speaker 1: completely burnt out, the tree continues to live. Regrowth after
Speaker 1: fire results in a thickened, uneven integument that give the
Speaker 1: tree its gnarled appearance, resembling an elephant skin, but that
Speaker 1: serves as an added protection against fire. The trees grow
Speaker 1: so big that they're hollowed. Interiors are often used for shelter,
Speaker 1: water storage and local gatherings. Yet between two thousand five
Speaker 1: and twenty seventeen, as researchers began to measure and record,
Speaker 1: dozens of the biggest baio babs, sturdy trees started dying off.
Speaker 1: The largest, the Platland tree, also known as the Sunland
Speaker 1: Baiobab of Limpopo Province, South Africa, was about sixty two
Speaker 1: feet that's nineteen meters high and in astonishing a hundred
Speaker 1: and eleven feet that's thirty four meters around. In twenty
Speaker 1: six and seventeen, it split four times and it's five
Speaker 1: stems crumpled to the ground and died. When another big
Speaker 1: baobab collapsed in sixteen, the researchers found that it contained
Speaker 1: just forty nine water compared to seventy nine percent for
Speaker 1: a healthy baiobab. Yen's gay Bour, a horticulturalist at the
Speaker 1: Rhineval University of Applied Sciences, told The New York Times.
Speaker 1: The new paper nice brings together information showing that the
Speaker 1: death of the millennial bail Babs is likely due to
Speaker 1: an unprecedented combination of temperature increase, and drought. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other environmental topics,
Speaker 1: visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.