Pathbreaking Environmental Statistician May Be Forced Out Of Job By Government Cutbacks

[hatrack]

The man who unlocked the secrets of the new seasons of climate change may have to leave his job because of government cutbacks. Tim Sparks has led the way in demonstrating that the plants and animals were already responding to global warming, before people were even aware of the problem.

The environmental statistician fathered a revival in the study of the timings of natural events, such as the leafing of trees, the nesting of birds and the emergence of insects – all of which are being altered by rising atmospheric temperatures. The findings figured prominently in the most recent report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as evidence that climate change was really happening. But the forthcoming closure of the wildlife research centre where Dr Sparks works means he may shortly be unemployed. It would be a bizarre ending to the career of a man who made what may come to be seen as one of the great scientific discoveries.

Dr Sparks's work has highlighted the immense transformation of nature in the past 30 years, as the world has started to warm up. Spring is starting earlier, and autumn later. In between the two, winter is being squeezed into a smaller and smaller period.

In southern England, oak leaves are sprouting 26 days before they did in 1950. Swallows, house sparrows, great tits and robins are laying their eggs a week earlier on average. Lesser celandines, commonly thought of as the first spring plant, are flowering three weeks earlier than in the 1950s, with poppies a fortnight ahead of where they used to be, and stinging nettles 10 days ahead. Some butterflies are also showing changes – brimstones and orange tips, generally thought of as the first butterflies of spring, have advanced their emergence dates by about a fortnight, while the red admiral, which used to be a summer migrant from the Continent, has started to over-winter in Britain and can now be seen in January. Even frogspawn is being laid 12 days earlier than it used to be.

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http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/global-warming-pioneers-job-threatened-790473.html