Spring comes 10 days earlier in changed U.S. climate

[defendandprotect]

Spring comes 10 days earlier in changed U.S. climate

Reuters

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent – 2 hrs 5 mins ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Spring comes about 10 days earlier in the United States than it did two decades ago, a consequence of climate change that favors invasive species over indigenous ones, scientists said on Tuesday.

The phenomenon known as "spring creep" has put various species of U.S. wildlife out of balance with their traditional habitats, from the rabbit-like American pika in the West to the roses and lilies in New England, the environmental experts said in a telephone news briefing.

"The losers tend to be our native plant species," said Charles Davis of Harvard University, who studied plant changes in Concord, Massachusetts, where American conservationist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau lived a century and a half ago.

"Climate change is not affecting species uniformly," Davis said. "Certain groups are hit harder than others, and those species that are not able to respond to climate change ... are being hit the hardest."

In Massachusetts, Davis said, those include some of the most charismatic species, such as lilies, orchids, roses and dogwoods.

Based on Thoreau's notes and research by botanists in the area, Davis and other scientists figure that about 30 percent of the plant species Thoreau saw are locally extinct and a further 30 percent are in scarce supply, crowded out by southern invaders that can now thrive in New England.

Invasive non-native plants can succeed in a changing climate because some of them are better able to adjust their development.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100420/us_nm/us_climate_spring_usa

[Warpy]

1. Flowering trees here in NM bloomed a couple of weeks late this year

because we've had a grey, chilly, stormy winter. I'm wondering if that might be a pattern in southern areas as earlier blooms are happening in northern areas.

[Individualist]

2. It's quite noticeable to those of us who are older

Spring comes earlier and fall comes later.

[safeinOhio]

5. I've also noticed

the years go by faster too.

[ThomWV]

3. We seem to be exactly on time here in northern West Virginia, and I pay attention

My father died on the 14th of April, many years, in fact decades ago. It was a bleak day and the trees were still bare of green. One week later, to the day, the glorious green of spring had returned. And every spring since then I have watched the beginning of the third week of April and the beauty it brings and wish with all my heart that my father had lived one more week to see it. He didn't. The leaves are coming on right now, by friday or saturday it will be here. Nothing has changed.

[deaniac21]

4. Vernal equinox occurs on March 20 normally but March 21 in

leap years.