Thoreau's Notes Reveal How Spring Has Changed in 150 Years

[Dead_Parrot]

Springtime in Concord, Mass., has changed since the town was home to Henry David Thoreau, and the writer himself has helped scientists figure out how.

So have other naturalists, whose written records of the plants and animals around them have helped researchers decipher how climate change has affected eastern Massachusetts and beyond.

Beginning in 1851, Thoreau scribbled records of the timing of the first spring flower blooms in his journals.

A century and a half later, Richard Primack, a professor of biology at Boston University, and his then-graduate student, Abe Miller-Rushing, followed in the writer's footsteps, observing the habits of the same species.

More: http://www.livescience.com/18938-thoreau-citizen-science-climate-change.html