Spring is arriving early this year. So here’s how you can help scientists understand the effects of climate change

Hi,

For as long as humans have existed, and probably long before, The ‘anthropocene’ is a two-way relationship between humanity and the planet. we’ve looked to nature for signs of what’s ahead. Those signals, which are hardwired into our planet’s ecology, are starting to fray.

January was the warmest January in history. The European Union’s Copernicus climate service ranked January 2020 as the warmest January ever measured. So far, 2020 is on track to be one of the warmest years in history. Factoring in ocean temperatures, 2020 is likely to be among the warmest three years in recorded history. In eastern North America, northern Europe, Russia, the Korean peninsula, and Japan, this year’s early warmth has been especially off-the-charts, and there are emerging signs that flowers, trees, and animals are already waking to an extremely early spring.

An unusually early spring – the earliest ever recorded for parts of the southeastern United States The National Phenology Network tracks emerging signs of spring, like the greening of leaves, in the United States. – fits the predictions of what we expect to see in a warming climate. In the US states of Virginia and Tennessee, this year’s first tree leaves have arrived between 18 and 24 days earlier than normal. On Twitter, people were sharing pictures of daffodils beginning to sprout See the picture of daffodils in New York. as far north as New York. It’s not even Valentine’s Day yet.

Last week, the Japan Weather Association published its first forecast of this year’s cherry blossoms, Explore the first detailed forecast of Japan’s 2020 cherry blossoms. which are expected to arrive several days early due to warm weather. For more than 1,000 years, botanists have been keeping track of the date of the cherry blossoms’ arrival in Kyoto, Japan, which has shifted forward by about 10 days over the past 100 years. Explore a chart of the past 1,000+ years of Japan’s cherry blossom emergence. In the autumn of 2018, a few of the blossoms arrived six months early, Read about Japan’s fall cherry bloom in 2018. a freak occurrence that scientists blamed on a series of typhoons that had defoliated trees, which prevented the release of a necessary hormone to prepare the trees for winter.

For northern countries, which are warming at a rate more than twice the global average, this effect is most profound. Read a study showing that spring is arriving faster in countries that are further north. In unique places like the Tibetan Plateau, where some plants and animals require an accumulation of enough cold days to properly move through their life cycles, spring is actually arriving later Read about how the phenology of the Tibetan Plateau has radically changed due to warming winters. due to mid-winter warm spells that are now altering the rhythm of millions of years of evolution.

If you’re in the US, you can help scientists document these changes by joining the Nature’s Notebook project, Join the Nature’s Notebook project here. an initiative by the National Phenology Network. If you’re outside the US, search for “phenology citizen science” to join a project near you.

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