How does their increasing vulnerability to blister rust and their recent inundation by bark beetles since 1910, exactly as predicted by the climate change alarmists, remove blame from climate change?
Because the literature specifically excludes it.
Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) forests are declining across most of its range in North America because of the combined effects of
three factors (Arno 1986, Kendall and Keane 2001).
Then they list the THREE factors:
First, there have been several major mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus
ponderosae) outbreaks that have killed many cone-bearing whitebark pine
trees
The effects of an extensive and successful fire-exclusion management
policy since the 1930s have also reduced the area burned in whitebark
pine forests, resulting in a decrease of suitable conditions for whitebark pine
regeneration
Finally, the introduction of the exotic fungus white pine blister rust (Cronarium
ribicola) to the western United States circa 1910 has killed many five-needle
pine trees, and whitebark pine is one of the most susceptible to the disease
(Hoff et al. 1980, Keane and Arno 1993, Murray et al. 1995, Kendall and
Keane 2001).
Which they summarize:
The cumulative effects of these three agents have resulted in a rapid decrease in mature whitebark pine over the last 20 years.
Then they add a note about climate change:
predicted changes in northern Rocky Mountain climate brought about by
global warming
could further exacerbate whitebark pine decline
Which is about predicted changes in the future and not yet blamed for their decline.
Their ecological niche is fairly narrow, throughout their range. They have nowhere suitable to go they don't already live, and they are endangered throughout their range.
Yes, they are endangered due to a rust, beetles and our fire management principles. I find it interesting that you focus on the least of their problems when the MAIN issue that we need to deal with is changing our fire management practices. (it makes the Rust and beetle problem worse as well)
And climate change so far has been very rapid, and seems to be accelerating.
There is no significant evidence that it is accelerating.
The World Meteorological Organisation said that 2010 was the joint warmest year on record, tied with 1998 and 2005, or in other words, we still haven't seen a rise in average global temperature in over a decade. So while it's staying warm (The globe is ~half a degree over the 1960-90 average) for the last 12 years it has not increased over that average.
Still, assuming that it will again start to increase at the rate it had been since 1960-90 till it's peak in 1998-2010, and continue for the rest of the century that would represent a warming of ~1.3 degrees by the end of the century or less than HALF what was used in the analysis that suggested that climate change would eventually cause a negative impact to the Whitebark pines.
Even if there were somewhere for them to pioneer into, nutcracker stashing is unlikely to be fast enough at spreading them into the alien place.
Of course there is, they can go up since they live near the tree line, and the tree line will move up with warming making new areas available (since there won't be trees there already) and the Clark's nutcracker does a good job of caching seeds in suitable germination sites.
Arthur