If midsummer is on or around the solstice then this is the beginning of summer.
I remember last year feeling like the solstice actually being the midpoint of the season made so much more sense to my sense of being in my environment than the astronomical seasons did. Summer beginning now also feels far more accurate to me.
Green-up in Fairbanks is approaching. Using observed temperatures since March 1st and the forecasts for the ten days, our little model now showing a 60 percent of green-up late next week. The long term average green-up is May 8 and this year is sure to be earlier than that. #akwx#Spring2024#Phenology@CarrieinFbx@anisian@mivox@themattphelps@debmcqueen@leepetersen@dboo@Climatologist49
Poppy from the Cal Fire Sonoma Lake Napa Unit, Healdsburg, California. The lupine were also opening up at this time. More at #publiclands#photography#phenology#calfire#flowers Image credit Kurt Angersbach / Westernlabs
I'm pleased that I won't have to be cold and heat up at the weekend. I'm wearing a plush jacket. But from 13°C and constant rain to summer with 25°C: how will my circulatory system cope?
I've never had to change from winter to summer clothes before! Last year the apple blossom was threatened by late frost. Now the trees will be roasted?
The phases of plants and animals no longer coincide. What will real summer be like? Alarming!
1/3 Daughter sent me this photo today - a massive lake in Gildredge Park in #Eastbourne where there is normally just grass. I remembered that about a year ago the same happened and I did my very first #ClimateDiary post (before official launch). And then felt bad as I had been planning to write a #ClimateDiary blog to mark our one year anniversary, but assumed I had missed it by now; another one of my many unfinished, undone projects. BUT, i just checked:
This is an excellent @longreads article (or book excerpt rather) about #Thoreau and #Darwin (since today is Darwin's birth anniversary). It hits on so many of the major reasons why I love, and continue to be inspired by, Thoreau.
"[Thoreau] hovered between design and chance, between idealism and materialism. Which is why his argument in “The Succession of Forest Trees” is so remarkable—for Thoreau locates mystery and wonder within materialism."
"After a while I learn what my moods and seasons are. I would have nothing subtracted. I can imagine nothing added. My moods are thus periodical, not two days in my year alike. The perfect correspondence of Nature to man, so that he is at home in her!"
#ClimateDiary Once again i have to ask my perennial question here: what is normal? I just don’t know! Yet again having to acknowledge how unobservant and ignorant i am with regard to #Phenology. This time it’s trees srill having all their (now brown/orange, pretty overall) leaves. It’s almost December. Have they not normally dropped their leaves by now? I don’t know. Sme pictures from Sussex train
Just as interesting is that "continental scale" phenocam network from Arizona State University that this camera is a part of. https://phenocam.nau.edu/webcam/
"In fact, the art of preserving nature may have to become almost as adaptable as nature itself, as we, along with the golden-cheeked warbler and greater sage-grouse, learn to adjust to a changing world." —David Gessner for Orion Magazine
#ClimateDiary Just saw that our (already very scraggly looking) #Laburnum tree has suddenly started flowering - not everywhere, but around 4-5 flowers across the tree. It’s flowering season is normally May/June. Is it just ours or have others observed the same? Or is it normal for them and i just didn’t notice before? #Phenology#Jahreszeitenchaos#SeasonChaos
@hydropsyche i was just trying to look it up - i don’t know. Yet again struck my profound ignorance and lack of observation about any of this, until far too recently- an ongoing conversation with @CiaraNi#Phenology
🧵 1/9 #Assomption (#Assumption of Mary) today, is a holiday here in France. In German we have the name "Kräuterweihe" that reminds much better to the #pagan history behind that date. Indeed, it was one of the most important days of agricultural calendars. Here, I talk about the #CulturalHeritage especially in #Alsace, its connection to #nature and even #climateChange - not about the Catholic idea. For #ClimateDiary it's a day which should change the date: weather #traditions don't work anymore.
@NatureMC Fascinating use of traditional culture changes over time to note changes in plant #phenology. In this case, herbs brought to church for blessings are no longer blooming at the proper time due to climate change, so different ones are brought.
"The study, led by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Michigan State University, found that birds are producing fewer chicks when they start breeding too early or too late in the spring season. This type of research is known as phenology, or the study of periodic events in biological life cycles. As climate change results in earlier springlike weather, birds have been unable to adapt their reproductive readiness."
#ClimateDiary more school walk musings. We have these majestic #Holmoaks around here (they are really amazing). At the moment the ground is covered with their dry leaves. They are evergreen and i don’t remember ever seeing this before. In June.Is it the #Drought? But could also have just not noticed this in previous years.
Thinking a lot about #Attention again at the moment and #Phenology - and how it is really hard to monitor continuities and changes, unless they have direct relevance for you
The 1st flowers have just opened on the small-leaved kowhai tree, Sophora microphylla, at my parents' house in Ōtautahi-Christchurch. The tree came from Gore Bay as a seedling.
We first thought it was the earliest year ever, but no, that was 2017. It's been amazingly variable.
2012: 8 July
2013: 6 July
2014: 2 June
2015: (full bloom on 6 September so a late year)
2016: 31 July
2017: 4 May
2018: 8 July
2019: 23 June
2020: 6 June
2021: 21 July
2022: 19 June
2023: 28 May