Ben says, "This one is easy, Steven. That little Engelmann spruce (or maybe it’s a subalpine fir) has been damaged by low temperatures and wind -- freeze-drying, abrasion by sharp snow crystals -- it had to endure through the very long, very cold winter we had. Takes a lot of meteorological abuse to do that much harm to a hardy upper-subalpine individual such as the one in the pic. The lower, undamaged portion was protected below the snow surface, where temperatures are a little warmer and the wind is not a problem.
Did you see the same sort of damage to other trees about that height or smaller in this location? It’s not a global-warming thing, really -- although the warming climate has lots of little trees invading meadows that once had few.
If they can keep growing, attaining a height that gets them above the zone of snow-blast, which is strongest close to the snow surface, these trees may become flag trees: bushy at the base, where the snow protects them, then a metre or so of mostly bare trunk above, through the freeze-drying/snow-abrasion zone (a few branches on the down-wind side, the flag), and bushy again higher up, where there is much less flying ice."
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