Dec 16, 2024 09:48 PM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1068351
INTRO: On February 2, 1887, residents of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania consulted a large rodent regarding the arrival of spring, marking the first official celebration of Groundhog Day. According to Rob Guralnick, curator of biodiversity informatics at the Florida Museum of Natural History, our ability to predict the timing of seasons hasn’t improved much since then.
“We can’t generate good forecasts for whether spring will arrive early or late next year nearly as well as we can make predictions about the weather,” he said.
Weather patterns influence when a season begins and ends, but the ways in which plants and animals respond to these patterns, called phenology, is just as crucial. Meteorologists can make reliable temperature forecasts months in advance, but when it comes to predicting when a species of tree will start growing leaves throughout its range, scientists are often left shrugging.
When complex factors like climate change are added to the mix, such predictions become even more difficult to make.
But a new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment is set to make seasonal forecasting a little less onerous and a lot more reliable. The authors enhanced existing approaches used to predict phenology and added a measurement of how fast an area warms in spring. This improvement allowed the authors to predict how the timing of leaf and flower production would change over a period spanning more than 150 years... (MORE - details)
INTRO: On February 2, 1887, residents of Punxsutawney Pennsylvania consulted a large rodent regarding the arrival of spring, marking the first official celebration of Groundhog Day. According to Rob Guralnick, curator of biodiversity informatics at the Florida Museum of Natural History, our ability to predict the timing of seasons hasn’t improved much since then.
“We can’t generate good forecasts for whether spring will arrive early or late next year nearly as well as we can make predictions about the weather,” he said.
Weather patterns influence when a season begins and ends, but the ways in which plants and animals respond to these patterns, called phenology, is just as crucial. Meteorologists can make reliable temperature forecasts months in advance, but when it comes to predicting when a species of tree will start growing leaves throughout its range, scientists are often left shrugging.
When complex factors like climate change are added to the mix, such predictions become even more difficult to make.
But a new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment is set to make seasonal forecasting a little less onerous and a lot more reliable. The authors enhanced existing approaches used to predict phenology and added a measurement of how fast an area warms in spring. This improvement allowed the authors to predict how the timing of leaf and flower production would change over a period spanning more than 150 years... (MORE - details)