Martha Carlson wants to know if she can see climate change in her backyard. Her study begins in her own forest on the south face of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Sugar producers, skeptical of science and sure that climate change can’t be real, join her search and share their keen observations of the change they see in maple trees, sap and syrup.
Carlson’s journey takes us to classrooms and laboratories at the University of New Hampshire where scientists teach her the facts of climate change and the scientific method for asking her question.
Carlson peeks inside sugar maple cells, learns how trees turn sunlight into sugar, and watches as her trees respond to drought, changing seasons, forest fire smoke, heat waves and cold so deep one tree explodes. She coaxes scientists to focus their tools on the sugar maple, to help her examine the trees with satellite imagery, scanning electron microscopes, and high performance liquid chromatography.
Carlson asks intriguing questions. What makes the sap run up a tree? How come the maples don’t blow up when they break water molecules apart to make sugar? And what is putting black goo on the syrup filters in sugar houses all across maple country? Carlson doesn’t offer any easy answers. Her writing and photographs are extraordinary.
425 pages
10 graphs and images, 30 photos
Kindle Edition
$9.95 on Amazon.com
Dr. Carlson is a member of the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association. In 2017, 24 sugar producers are collecting sap for her ongoing study of stress in sugar maples. Carlson lives in Sandwich, NH, with her husband Rudy, Teddy the black Labrador sap retriever, and Phineas the cat, all of whom join this story of science and sugar.
Contact Carlson at [email protected].
Carlson’s journey takes us to classrooms and laboratories at the University of New Hampshire where scientists teach her the facts of climate change and the scientific method for asking her question.
Carlson peeks inside sugar maple cells, learns how trees turn sunlight into sugar, and watches as her trees respond to drought, changing seasons, forest fire smoke, heat waves and cold so deep one tree explodes. She coaxes scientists to focus their tools on the sugar maple, to help her examine the trees with satellite imagery, scanning electron microscopes, and high performance liquid chromatography.
Carlson asks intriguing questions. What makes the sap run up a tree? How come the maples don’t blow up when they break water molecules apart to make sugar? And what is putting black goo on the syrup filters in sugar houses all across maple country? Carlson doesn’t offer any easy answers. Her writing and photographs are extraordinary.
425 pages
10 graphs and images, 30 photos
Kindle Edition
$9.95 on Amazon.com
Dr. Carlson is a member of the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association. In 2017, 24 sugar producers are collecting sap for her ongoing study of stress in sugar maples. Carlson lives in Sandwich, NH, with her husband Rudy, Teddy the black Labrador sap retriever, and Phineas the cat, all of whom join this story of science and sugar.
Contact Carlson at [email protected].