Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 42: Do grass-eating Arctic geese suffer a climate mismatch?

Arctic geese like the Barnacle goose that breed on the Russian tundra and winter in the Netherlands need to increase the speed of their return trips, as the tundra spring starts weeks earlier – possibly skipping their fuelling stops on … Continue reading

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 38: European migratory birds offer early climate warning

Migratory birds may seem to be well equipped to cope with the consequences of climate change, because their trait of seasonal migration is of course already an evolutionary adaptation to temperature fluctuations that characterise the seasons of Earth’s temperate climate … Continue reading

Grand Solar Minima do bring cooling to Europe Holocene record shows

But now it’s not dry and icy five-month winters, but wet and windy springs instead. Or would you say these combine?

Earlier spring snowmelt decreases flowers, hurts butterflies

Mormon Fritillary butterfly on aspen daisy spring flower

A Mormon Fritillary butterfly feeding on an aspen fleabane daisy, a main nectar source. Credit: Carol Boggs, Stanford University

Early snowmelt caused by climate change in the Colorado Rocky Mountains snowballs into two chains of events: a decrease in the number of flowers, which, in turn, decreases available nectar. The result is decline in a population of the Mormon Fritillary butterfly, Speyeria mormonia.

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Mid-Atlantic suburbs can expect an early spring thanks to the heat of the big city

Urban heat island effect

Urban heat island around Washington and Baltimore would lead to longer growing season, warmer autumn and spring

If you’ve been thinking our world is more green than frozen these days, you’re right. A recent study has found that spring is indeed arriving earlier – and autumn later – in the suburbs of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The reason? The urban landscape traps heat in the summer and holds it throughout the winter, triggering leaves to turn green earlier in the spring and to stay green later into autumn. The result is a new, extended growing season.

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