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Trees Across the U.S. Are Sprouting Leaves Earlier Than Usual This Year
- wil421 4y agoThere was a hugh cold snap in the South East during December that lasted a week or so. The timing and the duration was unusual. Even some of my garage kept citrus plants started to bloom, usually it would be late winter not early or mid winter.
- blitz_skull 4y agoInteresting to see an article on this. I was just mentioning to a friend how wild it was that the trees in late February looked like the trees usually look in May.
- tolmasky 4y agoWhen I was a kid I assumed that spring started January 1st... since that's when the year started. And then every year I would be like "wow, what an unseasonably cold spring this is." Maybe in a few years my belief as a little kid will actually end up becoming true.
- shawabawa3 4y agoFunnily enough the new year did use to start in spring before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, so you were almost right, just 300 years too late
- tolmasky 4y agoInterestingly, I did learn about that later as a kid, which stuck with me for a completely different reason: the new year used to start on my birthday! (March 25th)
- SSLy 4y agoNew year was moved to january in antiquity, nothing to do with Gregory XIII or his calendar.
- messe 4y agoNot in England, Wales, Ireland and Britain's American colonies, which all made the change of the new year from March to January in 1752 alongside the switch to the Gregorian calendar. Scotland made the change in 1600.
- ConfusedDog 4y agoWe celebrate Spring Festival or Chinese New Year every year around the end of January. I always felt it's weird because it's nothing "spring" about this cold-ass situation.
- michael1999 4y agoAnd that's why the astronomical seasons are bunk, and the meteorological seasons are the way.
- vaxintar 4y agoI've noticed the same phenomenon where I live in Patagonia. Two weeks ago, my wife noticed that some trees were changing their leaf colors earlier than usual, which isn't too surprising. But then we noticed that wild apple trees and berries were also producing fruits about a month earlier than expected. I joked saying autumn is arriving earlier this year now I'm a bit worried about the whole situation
- mcdonje 4y agoI don't know what would cause a tree to sprout leaves earlier in the spring. And I don't know if the article explains that because of the paywall. Maybe it has to do with temperature? As far as shedding leaves earlier in the fall, I heard they determine that based on when they've collected enough CO2. The more CO2 in the atmosphere, the less time it takes the trees to meet their goals.
- bodhi_mind 4y agoFor most plants, it’s average temperature for a period of time.
- phkahler 4y agoI've always been interested in the effect of air traffic on weather. Contrails can initiate cloud formation. With the war in Europe causing changes in routes I wonder if that's having an effect on northern hemisphere weather patterns on a large scale.
- hammock 4y agoIs that why Chicago winters are perpetually gray?
- phkahler 4y agoNo idea. Michigan is more gray than Wisconsin because the air picks up moisture as it crosses lake Michigan. The western parts get a lot of lake effect snow too. Chicago I have no idea. How does it compare to Milwaukee?
- RajT88 4y agoChicago probably gets more lake effect cloud cover. You're right that it's always gray downtown in the winter. Further out where I live it's not perpetually gray, it's more of a mixed bag. Currently clear skies.
- ecolonsmak 4y agoThe only constant is change.
- dathos 4y agoI say this to my kids while I keep consuming the same as "the rest" does
- ck2 4y agoSince 2016 at this point I am never going to be surprised if there is ever a big reveal some kind of horrible toxic pollution has been going on nationwide for years and at this point is never going to stop. Non-stop fracking burnoff is bad enough, it makes people ill dozens of miles away enough to put some in the hospital but we have allowed industrial toxic zones right among populated areas, schools, etc. https://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones https://www.propublica.org/series/sacrifice-zones
- Workaccount2 4y agoWe already have PCBs everywhere.
- spicyusername 4y agoI suspect it was the combination of that sub zero cold snap followed by unseasonably warm temperatures. I once read that some estimates indicate we're already more than a quarter through the expected climate change, which makes all of these extreme weather effects make sense.
- ramesh31 4y agoHere's the map: https://www.usanpn.org/files/npn/maps/six-leaf-index-anomaly.png https://www.usanpn.org/files/npn/maps/six-leaf-index-anomaly...
- mtalantikite 4y agoDaffodils on our block here in Brooklyn started coming up around the last week of February, which felt like three weeks or so too soon. This was definitely the mildest winter I've experienced in my life. And if I'm remembering correctly, NYC was reclassified as a "humid, subtropical" climate zone a few years ago. Looking forward to the future palm trees on the east river. /s
- seafoam 4y agoFor anyone not in Brooklyn this morning, it is snowing here right now.
- ceejayoz 4y agoIt snows in Florida sometimes, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_in_Florida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_in_Florida NYC saw the warmest January on record, and measurable snow didn't start in NYC this year until Feb 1, the latest in 150 years. https://www.wunderground.com/article/news/news/2023-01-30-new-york-city-latest-first-snow-of-season-record-set https://www.wunderground.com/article/news/news/2023-01-30-ne...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- avisser 4y agoAnd it's over 40 in Providence. I'm having trouble reading your comment as anything other than misleading about how warm this winter has been.
- nerdponx 4y agoNew England is also having one of its warmest winters on record, and the trend over the last 40 years has been consistent warming.
- jghn 4y agoIt's raining in Boston. Although points west and north are getting a lot of heavy, wet snow. I'd need to look up the numbers but I felt like while we didn't get much snow at all that we got a *lot* of rain. There were a number of rainstorms where if it'd been rain we'd have been pounded. And when it did snow, not much stuck and/or it melted away in a couple of days. This isn't the only year I can remember that, but it's at least unusual.
- melling 4y agoTime to watch Carl Sagan, almost 50 years ago, explain how our coal usage would be a big problem: https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI A slow train wreck that was avoidable.
- pif 4y ago> A slow train wreck that was avoidable. Avoidable? Yes, but for which price? Our economy, and thus wellbeing, depend on having huge quantities of cheap energy available. You think pollution is bad? Ask the hundreds of million of people who chose to move from the pristine country to a polluted city along the last centuries! Pollution is bad, but lack of energy is worse. When our technology will let us stop polluting without giving up comfort, that will be the right time to stop polluting.
- consumer451 4y ago> Avoidable? Yes, but for which price? Our economy, and thus wellbeing, depend on having huge quantities of cheap energy available. The world may gain an estimated $78 trillion over coming decades by making this energy transition. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/06/08/how-replacing-coal-with-renewable-energy-could-pay-for-itself https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2022/06/08/how-replaci...
- pif 4y agoSure, now it may. But 50 years ago? No way!
- te_chris 4y agoYes, nothing to be gained if we’d switched anytime sooner in the last 50 years. Very smart observation. Apart from a liveable planet.
- animitronix 4y agoI think the point is that the tech wasn't ready yet 50 years ago
- the8472 4y agoThat might be because we're currently part of the control group* in the aerosol geoengineering experiment. https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1633566568528375811 https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1633566568528375811 * not controlled for GHGs
- kerpotgh 4y agoMore like the control group for ending ending an aerosol geoengineering experiment.
- throw_away1525 4y agoI was very aware of the new rules on sulfur as I had been working as a consultant for the very same engineering firms that actually run the sulfur capture units. I'm also very interested in climate change. I can't believe I didn't put the two together. Wow. You've made a very interesting connection.
- bodhi_mind 4y agoI asked chatgpt how common false springs are in the U.S. > False springs are not uncommon in the United States, and their frequency and severity can vary depending on the region and weather patterns. In general, false springs are more common in areas with a continental climate, where there can be large temperature fluctuations in the spring. According to a study by the USA National Phenology Network, false springs occur on average once every three years in the United States, with the highest frequency in the Midwest and the lowest in the southern and western regions. However, the frequency of false springs can vary greatly from year to year, and some regions may experience multiple false springs in a single season. False springs can have significant impacts on agriculture, particularly on fruit crops such as peaches, cherries, and apples, which are vulnerable to frost damage during early growth stages. In recent years, false springs have become more frequent and severe due to climate change, leading to increased risks for farmers and gardeners who rely on healthy plants for their livelihoods.
- codeddesign 4y agoIt’s sad to see you downvoted and yet your comment is completely on target. Not every situation is about “climate change”, but unfortunately this is too common when you go against the mob narrative.
- LoganDark 4y agoIt's probably because of the use of ChatGPT without actually fact-checking anything it wrote.
- bodhi_mind 4y agoFor the sake of the conversation: Me: provide references. > Schwartz, M. D., Ault, T. R., & Betancourt, J. L. (2013). Spring onset variations and trends in the continental USA: past and regional assessment using temperature-based indices. International Journal of Climatology, 33(12), 2917-2922. Ault, T. R., Henebry, G. M., & De Beurs, K. M. (2015). False spring climatology in the contiguous United States. Environmental Research Letters, 10(4), 044022. National Phenology Network. (2019). First Leaf and First Bloom Maps. Retrieved from https://www.usanpn.org/data/spring https://www.usanpn.org/data/spring Harrington, C. A., Gould, P. J., St. Clair, J. B., & Carlson, M. R. (2010). Modeling the effects of winter environment on dormancy release of Douglas-fir. Forest Ecology and Management, 259(3), 798-808.
- rootusrootus 4y agoAnd then in the PNW we got snow in March. Sometimes (in the valleys at least) we go entire years without any snow. I think everyone else is getting the early Spring at our expense.
- throwway120385 4y agoThe reason for the snow is largely because we're getting more frigid air from high pressure areas on the north end of the Fraser River Valley, which starts in northern Canada and ends just north of Vancouver Island. Every snow event over the past 3 or 4 months has been from Fraser outflow.
- kk6mrp 4y agoAnd yet the Almond Bloom in California is continuing longer than I ever remember it.
- standardly 4y agoThe climate is totally broken. The leaves didn't fall until mid to late November, and we had a pretty warm winter on the panhandle, rarely dipped below 40s-50s, and it's been in the 70s-80s since January (?). And, randomly, this week, the low is in the 40s.. it's just bizzaroworld.