From Harvard University
An early sign of spring, earlier than ever
Researchers say record-high temperatures led to earliest spring flowering in history
Record warm temperatures in 2010 and 2012 resulted in the earliest spring flowering in the eastern United States in more than 150 years, researchers at Harvard University, Boston University and the University of Wisconsin have found.
“We’re seeing plants that are now flowering on average over three weeks earlier than when they were first observed – and some species are flowering as much as six weeks earlier,” said Charles Davis, a Harvard Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and the study’s senior author. “Spring is arriving much earlier today than it has in the past.”
To explain spring’s early arrival, Davis and his co-authors, Boston University biology Professor Richard Primack, BU postdoctoral researcher Elizabeth Ellwood and Professor Stanley Temple at the University of Wisconsin, point to temperature increases resulting from global climate change. Using data collected in Massachusetts and Wisconsin from the mid-1800s to the present day, they show that the two warmest years on record – 2010 and 2012 – also featured record breaking early spring flowering.
Significantly, researchers found that the early arrival of spring was predicted by historical records, and that plants haven’t shown any sign of reaching a threshold for adjusting to warming temperatures.
“It appears that many spring plants keep pushing things earlier and earlier”, Davis said.
To conduct the study, Davis and colleagues relied on two “incredibly unique” data sets.
“The data were initiated by Henry David Thoreau in the mid-1800s,” Davis said. “He was making observations on flowering times across Concord, Massachusetts for nearly a decade. In central Wisconsin, the data were collected by environmental pioneer Aldo Leopold beginning in the mid-1930s.
“The striking finding is that we see the same pattern in Wisconsin as we see in Massachusetts,” Davis said. “It’s amazing that these areas are so far apart and yet we’re seeing the same things–it speaks to a larger phenomenon taking place in the eastern United States.”
“Thoreau and Leopold are icons of the American environmental movement and it is astonishing that the records both kept decades ago can be used today to demonstrate the impacts of climate change on plant flowering times,” Primack said.
While it’s clear that continued monitoring of flowering times is needed, Davis also expressed hope that the study provides a tangible example of the potential consequences of climate change.
“The problem of climate change is so massive, the temptation is for people to tune out,” Davis said. “But I think being aware that this is indeed happening is one step in the right direction of good stewardship of our planet.” Davis continued. “When we talk about future climate change, it can be difficult to grasp. Humans may weather these changes reasonably well in the short-term, but many organisms in the tree of life will not fare nearly as well.”
[ SNIP – that was over the top Mr. Shehan, stop putting words like that in other commenters mouths they did not write, I will not tolerate it. Take a 24 hour time out – Anthony Watts]
Mr Watts I am aware this will not be posted but I am unsure now of what the comment you are referring to. I doubt that I put words in anyone elses mouth but given that Courtney and Boehm have been doing that to me constantly I confess to being confused.
Philip Shehan:
Your entire post at January 21, 2013 at 1:35 am says
NO!
I have repeatedly quoted you verbatim then stated my understandings of your quoted words.
I have NOT ‘put words in your mouth’ at any time. On the other hand, you …
Richard
Philip Shehan says: January 20, 2013 at 6:56 pm
The matter of sea levels is different for different islands in different oceans as islands can go up or down with local subsidence or uplift of the seabed or the building of more coral reefs.
The Maldives may be unconcerned but that of Kiribati clearly is as its leader was shown at the recent climate change meeting pleading that the issue of AGW was a matter of his country’s survival. He may be wrong but he is certainly concerned.
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Please consider that these Islanders might not be so innocent as one might think. The case of the Maldives is instructive. Last year a new president declared that the Maldives are in no danger from rising sea levels, after all. It seems that potential investors were worried about the “threat of rising sea levels”. Who wants to see their new hotel flooded by the salty tide?
We know that the Maldives were never threatened. We know this because of studies conducted by a specialist Dr. Nils Axel-Morner, a Swedish specialist in sea-level and coastal evolution. He studied the Maldives circa 1965 and again around 2000.
Now come the Kiribati as the new poster child of threatened atolls. Similarly, the president of the Kiribati knows that his pleas of danger will find fertile ground in the media, with CAGW types, etc. In a world of believers and profligate governments, who can blame these Islanders for their happy expectations? Very likely it would be an interesting tale, if it were told how these Islanders conceived these hopes.
Philip Shehan:
I see that at January 21, 2013 at 3:01 am you again attempt to disrupt with misrepresentation.
At January 17, 2013 at 12:45 pm I replied to your outrageous claim that you had not disrupted two previous threads with your daft assertion that global warming is accelerating. In that post I quoted in full each of the first posts in each of those two threads in which you repeatedly peddled that nonsense. Anybody can scroll up to that post and read the facts for themselves.
You are without honour and your only purpose seems to be to disrupt threads of WUWT.
Don’t bother me with your falsehoods again.
Richard
[snip. — mod.]
(snip)
The whole Courtney/Shehan exchange is becoming pointless and tiresome, I’m going to say both of you need a 24 hour time out.
Anthony:
It is your blog and if you choose to ban me from your ‘home’ then that is your decision which, of course, I accept.
However, I think you decision lacks fairness.
Richard
REPLY: Don’t put words in my mouth, “ban” is a whole different thing from “time out”. I said you BOTH need to take a 24 hour time out, because I’m weary of the argument between you two. That’s fair to both, and especially to me and my moderation staff. – Anthony
Anthony:
I apologise that my choice of words has caused offence. I did not intend to “put words in [your] mouth”. I understood “a 24 hour time out” to be a “ban” from posting for 24 hours and that is all I meant to say.
Richard