NewsClimateWarming is chasing cloud forests steadily uphillDeforestation higher up on mountains will leave these Mesoamerican forests nowhere to retreat Mist swallows the treetops in a cloud forest in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Bromeliads, mosses and other epiphytes cover the tree trunks, greatly increasing the surface area of the canopy, thereby allowing it to collect vast amounts of water from tiny fog droplets.Santiago Ramrez-BarahonaBy Douglas Fox13 seconds agoCloud forests are strange and ghostly places akin to coral reefs hidden high on tropical mountains. Stunted trees loom in the mist, gnarled trunks and branches crusted in moss, lichens, orchids, ferns, bromeliads and even climbing cactus vines. Arboreal frogs and salamanders spawn in fog-fed bromeliad pools, and spider monkeys pause to sip drinks.But these enigmatic forests are being squeezed by warming and deforestation.Hundreds of tree and plant species that make up Mesoamerican cloud forests are being chased uphill by rising temperatures, at an average rate of 1.8 to 2.7 meters per year, researchers report in the March 7 Science. From 1979 to 2010, these forests retreated 84 meters uphill. At the same time, cattle grazing and deforestation higher on the mountains is pushing the forests downward 6.3 meters per year squishing these ecosystems into ever narrower bands of territory.