I was born in Washington State, but moved to Arizona when I was still in grade school. Relatives still lived in Washington so we would visit in the summers especially because it would get so (and still does) miserably hot here. So now I have lived here in Arizona 50 years (eekkk!) which I don't quite understand the math since I am only 27 (heh, heh), I can say from experience that the intensity of the sun seems to be getting greater and stronger. Anyway what I noticed this year, was quite a bit of "burning" of the leaves of different kinds of trees (shade, fruit, evergreen) and shrubs, fruit such as the Pomegranate seeds when opened have browned and spoiled although the outside of the fruit appears perfectly fine. I searched for some kind of answer and saw a youtube video made by a guy here in Arizona who talked about the rising U.V. index. I just thought this would be a good topic and was curious what other people thought about this topic and how it is affecting our plants and trees here in the Southwest. I personally believe it is rising and is directly tied to global warming. I don't mean to start any political debate here, just curious what others thought.