mind. ainsley: put that on top of the tree, there you go. are we ready to plug in the christmas tree? tree? [cheers] merry christmas. we have a lot of friends coming over to decorate the big tree. [doorbell] merry christmas. ainsley: y all come in, we are going to deck core rate the tree. this is paige, this is lori. i m from south carolina as you know. and these are my girls that are my heart, my life, my family in new york. we have gone on trips together and we are raising our kids together. and our kids go to the same schools and their sons are hayden s big brothers. they have to go on the tree.
living creatures on earth. but even these giants have an a quil chee achilles heel. yeah, their demand for water. we measured an individual sequoia tree uses up to a thousand gallons of water in a single day. if that water supply diminishes, there has to be an impact on the trees eventually. since 2015, they ve been scaling trees like this one, 250 feet high in order to record the drought s impact on their health and growth. on this day, they brought me along for the climb. i always love being up here. high above ambrose got to work downloading data from a science station they previously installed. the side branches need to be cut fairly close. yeah. while wendy gathered branch samples to be exal inned back in the lab. this is my jack in the bean stalk moment for real. i vented allly joined the pair in the deceptive safety of the tree s canopy. what has your data that you have collected so far, what has
the data told you. they are really good at minute miedzing how much water they lose under drought conditions by shutting down the little tiny pores in their leaves, those tiny pores are also what allows them to absorb carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. it sounds like they are shut down for business. yeah. and that is troubling for two reasons. the less carbon dioxide trees capture and store, the more of the heat hen trapping gas stays in the atmosphere fueling global warming, also the trees use carbon dioxide as food to grow. climate is changing so what does that mean for a tree like the is he quia that has very specific needs in order to survive the way it has for so long. as it gets hotter, snow is going to melt earlier an there is going to be less water available for these trees. and it may not be a place that they can continue to grow into the future. jonathan vigliotti, cbs news, sequoia national park, california.
old. ahead on the cbs weekend news, their 12 year old daughter died by suicide. now they re suing her school, seeking answers. scientists go out on a ltmb to help save california s giant sequoias from climate change. and later, an officer in need learns why his hometown is called the good neighbor city.
quijano: tonight we are walking among giants, the huge sequoia groves of california that draw millions of tourists a year. they are also survivors, struggling with climate change. the sequoias need tremendous amounts of water every day and as jonathan vigliotti shows us in his eye on earth, that is a big problem in a state plagued by draught. the forest service estimates niauring0 million trees died in this drought. 130 million. 130 million. from a lack of water. yeah. we re going up. tree ecologists anthony ambrose and wheny backs ter have been working throughout that draught which lasted from late 2010 t year. they have been analyzing the world famous monsters that survived. the giant sequoias, the largest