April 30, 2013

"Most of the woodland wildflowers are as late as they have ever been, and some are later than they have been in the last decade..."

"Bloodroot, red maple, toothwort, we haven’t recorded any blooms yet for any of them yet this year."
Last week’s bloom count lacked forsythia, long past its historical average of April 10 in [Aldo] Leopold’s study and March 9 in the [University of Wisconsin] Arboretum’s recent work and a latest date of April 20 for Leopold and April 15 at the Arboretum. The pale purple of hepatica held out past its April 17 record. Dutchman’s breeches, bloodroot, toothwort, white violets and Pennsylvania sedge were all reaching the record late dates for production of pollen of flowers....

“The same thing is happening up at the Leopold shack” near Baraboo, said Stan Temple, who has kept up his research on phenology as an emeritus professor of conservation. “It has been one of the latest dates for most of the things that we keep track of.”

March and April ran close to five degrees colder than average, but, as Temple notes, a late spring is no strange thing in Wisconsin....

“It seems even later because our recent comparisons have been so, so early,” Carpenter said. It was just last year we set so many of the earliest dates we’ve seen.”
Very late spring. Somewhere, Al Gore is fuming.

59 comments:

Palladian said...

Very late spring. Somewhere, Al Gore is fuming.

Is that what happens when your second Chakra is released?

Nonapod said...

Some Rusky boffins think we may be heading for an extended period of cooling.

Rusty said...

No Mayapples yet and the Purple Trillium is just coming up down here. The white and blue Shooting Stars have been up for a couple of weeks. The weather is just starting to be good enough for Morrels. A little more rain yet, I think.

Elle said...

Good.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Dem resolution warns climate change could push women to ‘transactional sex'.

There's a beautiful love song in there- just waiting to be written.



Palladian said...

I hate when the weather starts being good enough for morals.

edutcher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Known Unknown said...

CLIMATE CHANGE!

policraticus said...

Remember: Weather isn't climate. Unless it is. Or something.

SJ said...

Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get.

Do local bloom-times correspond to average global temperature, either directly or indirectly?

How tightly-coupled is the response?

I mean, everything related to weather becomes a discussion of Global Climate Change. Is there really a link here?

(In 2012, my area saw Spring-like warming for a week in February. To the point where cherry and apple trees started budding. Then the usual temperatures for February returned, with lots of frost. This killed the buds, and destroyed much of the summer/fall harvest of those fruits. Was that Climate Change, or an anomaly?)

gerry said...

Somewhere, Al Gore is fuming.

I hope the fumes aren't escaping to the atmosphere.

edutcher said...

Warming is responsible for cooling.

Yeah, that's Lefty logic.

AprilApple said...

Dem resolution warns climate change could push women to ‘transactional sex'.

They should be all for it.

It's what kept Christopher Dodd and Teddy Kennedy the life of Capitol Hill.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Someone left my hockey stick... in the rain...
My woodland flowers can't take it,
cuz it took so long to fake it...

Nonapod said...

AprilApple said...

Dem resolution warns climate change could push women to ‘transactional sex'.

There's a beautiful love song in there- just waiting to be written.


There's some kind of joke involving Al Gore and a masuess in that, but I'm not witty enough to construct it.

Moose said...

Everything is to blame on Anthropomorphic Global Forcing. You'll not that its not just for "warming" anymore. It also causes "transactional sex"!

PB said...

Climate must be defined by decades or centuries. Weather is what happens this year.

Al Gore just wants to be the head of a religion so he can fatten himself on the tithes of followers.

Æthelflæd said...

We had another small late frost last week. I garden in zone 8b in the south. Average last frost date of March 15. I completely lost my first planting of tomatoes, and have had to protect the second round three times. All you Wisconsinites are laughing, but this is the Gulf Coast South.

Any all all weather peculiarities must be filed under "Climate Change" and not "The Weather Has Always Been Peculiar, or Else What Would Geezers Have to Talk About?"

kcom said...

It's very simple, people:

Hot temperatures are climate.
Cold temperature are weather.

There's nothing more you need to remember.

chuck said...

Leopold,

A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.

What about the social community? Is the Democratic party wrong?

KCFleming said...

I advise Al Gore to try Bean-o for his fumes.

bagoh20 said...

"Most of the woodland flowers are as late as they have ever been."

I doubt that. Which is the whole problem with 95% of AGW squawking. Time frame. It's more weather than climate. People will never stop waking up, looking out the window, and thinking they see climate change.

glenn said...

Somewhere etc

Al isn't fuming, he's having coffee and pastry with his Hollywood sweetie, and laughing his ace off at the rubes who swallowed all that AGW stool and made him rich.

Steve Koch said...

So far 2013 is the coldest year in quite a while.

Two giants of global warming alarmism, Kevin Trenberth and James Hansen have said that the pause in global warming that has been going on for about 15 years will continue for decades more. Hansen says it is because the Chinese are polluting so much that more sunlight is being reflected to space. I don't know if he is correct but the Chinese are building coal powered electric plants at the rate of one per week.

Trenberth says the reason that atmospheric global warming stopped is because most of the heat is going into the very deep ocean (where it can't be measured).

Neither guy has data to back him up.

kcom said...

"Neither guy has data to back him up."

But they are righteous climate scientists. I believe that's sufficient proof.

Æthelflæd said...

It must have been the dang Chinese, then, who ended the Medieval Warm Period, and caused the Little Ice Age. Commie bastards.

traditionalguy said...

What is a late spring? The plants will bloom as soon as the sun adds warming to the thawed out earth and seeds feel the warmth.

The big story is that the warmth is MIA.

The last Hitler Bunker like madness from the CO2 is a pollution Reich is that the warmth is hiding out in the oceans. Maybe they are right. It has to be hiding out somewhere.

MadisonMan said...

"My" CSA -- Harmony Valley Farm -- out near Viroqua, also reports a very very late Spring.

I am always wondering what will be in that first box in mid-May during a cool Spring. Overwintered parsnips (yum!!) and not much else.

March and April could have been a lot cooler than normal, but the overnight lows weren't that low. Lots of chilly highs though.

This is an interesting study on the effects of reduced Arctic Sea Ice. I've also seen some studies that suggest reduced sea ice leads to two different preferred regimes, one like last year, one like this year. Super hot of somewhat cool. Very interesting reads.

MadisonMan said...

The big story is that the warmth is MIA.

Is it? I've read that Japan's Cherry Blossoms were as early as ever this year.

tim maguire said...

SJ said...In 2012, my area saw Spring-like warming for a week in February...Then the usual temperatures for February returned, with lots of frost...Was that Climate Change, or an anomaly?

Neither, it's completely normal for that to happen once in while. That's the problem with the alarmists--everything that deviates from "normal" is evidence of humans destroying the planet. Never mind that "normal" is an average and a period of precisely normal might be quite extraordinary.

As for Gore, he's made a fortune off the suckers and taxpayers. And at some point you've made enough.

MadisonMan said...

(Cheery Cherry Link)

garage mahal said...

That's the problem with the alarmists

Which alarmists? The one's that tell us WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE if we consider one source of energy outside of fossil fuels?

Paddy O said...

Above average temps in SoCal, rain very lacking in 2013.

Seeing Red said...

The beauty of it's the soot, as Insty pointed out awhile ago was.....

Some scientists actually wanted to inject particles in the air to.....


stop global warming.


And round and round we go.

Original Mike said...

I have a lot of Blood Root in my garden. It just started blooming in the last few days. I don't keep a garden journal (wish I did), but I'm guessing 3 weeks late.

Seeing Red said...

If Hansen's lips are moving he's lying and pocketing monies & not declaring the income on his 1040.

Seeing Red said...

So the Japanese, the Danes & I think the Ozzies say AGW isn't going to be as bad as they thought.


Seeing Red said...

I thought I read the Chi-Coms are getting worried about their air quality, even the ruling class has to breathe it.

Original Mike said...

My hepatica and Dutchman’s breeches also just started blooming in the last couple of days.

MadisonMan said...

Our lilac is usually blooming by Mother's Day. It's got a lot to do in the next two weeks if it's going to do it this year.

Of course, last year, everything was done by now.

Colonel Angus said...

Which alarmists? The one's that tell us WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE if we consider one source of energy outside of fossil fuels?

Well if you mean as a total replacement of fossil fuels. The only viable source would be nuclear but I'm sure that's not what you meant.

n.n said...

Global Cooling/Warming/Climate Disruption/Change has been good to Salt Lake City. We have an idyllic Spring with perfectly (within the range of "scientific" claims) average (aka "normal") temperatures.

As for what is "normal", the system exhibits a chaotic behavior. It is bounded with random intermediate behavior which varies with time, location, terrestrial and extraterrestrial processes, etc. Normal at any given moment is a probabilistic distribution. It is not a single number "average".

traditionalguy said...

Mad Man...The cold spring is regional, as you point out. It's the jet streams stupid.

The jet streams have been stuck in different in places that they were once not stuck over recorded memory.

The point is that drought hot spots or cooling cold spots come from lowering jet streams and that comes from more cooling than usual. Not from more warming than usual.

But if CO2 pollution warming is still your religion, than chalk those facts up to heretics on the lose.

Original Mike said...

"Two giants of global warming alarmism, Kevin Trenberth and James Hansen have said that the pause in global warming that has been going on for about 15 years will continue for decades more. Hansen says it is because the Chinese are polluting so much that more sunlight is being reflected to space. I don't know if he is correct but the Chinese are building coal powered electric plants at the rate of one per week."

We have centuries of coal supply if it's necessary to keep the planet cool. Problem solved.

Rusty said...

Palladian said...
I hate when the weather starts being good enough for morals.

Or the lack thereof;-)

Rusty said...

garage mahal said...
That's the problem with the alarmists

Which alarmists? The one's that tell us WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE if we consider one source of energy outside of fossil fuels?

You mean nuclear? I'm all for it.

Michael K said...



4/30/13, 10:16 AM
Blogger garage mahal said...

" That's the problem with the alarmists

Which alarmists? The one's that tell us WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE if we consider one source of energy outside of fossil fuels?"

I haven't heard any of them. Would you provide a link ?

I guess he anti-nuclear folks would qualify. Is that what you meant ?

JPS said...

Original Mike:

"We have centuries of coal supply if it's necessary to keep the planet cool. Problem solved."

Well, burning our coal doesn't cool the world - see, we got worried about acid rain, so now we scrub most of the sulfur compounds that lead to the sulfate aerosols, that are implicated after the fact in Why Burning Coal Both Warms and Cools the World, Depending on What We Need To Shore Up Our Theory.

Garage Mahal: I'm all for energy sources other than fossil fuels, in fact professionally involved in exploring them - not exactly a WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE stance. Please name a combination that scale to fit our needs, that aren't massively more expensive than what we have, and that don't present environmental/safety worries at least as large as those we have now, and I will rethink my irrational attachment to fossil fuels.

bwebster said...

Pretty much our observation here in Colorado. We've lived here (about 35 miles SE of downtown Denver) for eight years -- in that time, I'm not sure I've ever seen almost all the trees and bushes still bare (though some slow budding on some trees) as of April 30th.

Oh, and tonight we're getting our 7th? 8th? snowfall since the end of February. ..bruce..

Seeing Red said...

Windmill energy, windmill economy.

Amartel said...

It was unseasonably hot in the greater Bay Area this past weekend. Of course, this made for an ideal jumping off point to moan about global warming. If it had been unseasonably cold, they would have moaned about climate change. Because all facts must serve the progressive legislative agenda.

It's no surprise that the box of rocks who sponsored the "climate change could lead to transactional sex" bill is from Oakland.

Sam L. said...

AlGoreBull Worming is all BUSH!!!!111!!!'s fault.

Sam L. said...

" Palladian said...

I hate when the weather starts being good enough for morals.

4/30/13, 9:39 AM"

And as friend of mine says, "Hooray, hooray, It's the First of May! Outdoor lovin' starts today!"

Sam L. said...

"PBGolfer said...

Climate must be defined by decades or centuries. Weather is what happens this year.

Al Gore just wants to be the head of a religion so he can fatten himself on the tithes of followers."

And I see old Al has fattened up a bunch.

Larry J said...

As the InstaPundit puts it, "I'll believe it's a crisis when the people who claim it's a crisis start acting like it's a crisis."

George M. Spencer said...

We need more surveillance on this so-called Mother Nature. A dangerous trans-national stateless actor, if there ever was one.

She's weaponized heat and done the same with cold. She can throw down mega-bursts of WMD from the sky, hurl torrents of ocean water at us, even drop space rocks from the heavens that could vaporize entire cities.

I want the government to do something about this. Right now. Don't care what it costs.

Fritz said...

The weatherpeople tend to use 30 year running average as a indicator of climate. It smooths out highs and lows, but allows the climate to change slowly without fixing it in one spot.

Note that under such a definition, we are probably still experiencing warming, even though the global mean temperature has been has been basically flat for 12-16 years (depending on which set of number you choose).

Steve Koch said...

Fritz said...
"The weatherpeople tend to use 30 year running average as a indicator of climate. It smooths out highs and lows, but allows the climate to change slowly without fixing it in one spot."

The way temps are averaged has no impact on climate change. I guess you were actually talking about the change in the results of the temp running average calculation than change in the climate, right?

When you say weatherpeople, don't you mean climatologists since they are much more concerned with climate than weathermen are? I can understand your reluctance to use the term climatologist since that might open you up to a barrage of ridicule.

As far as the suitability of using thirty years as the duration of the running average calculation, it may or may not make sense. Some climate scientists think that there various climate cycles of various time periods. One of the theories suggests there is a cycle that lasts about 60 years, about 30 years going up and 30 years going down and then repeating (like a sine wave). Averaging the most recent 30 years of this sine wave does not tell you much about the future and will probably produce completely wrong answers if used to compute temp projections.

"Note that under such a definition, we are probably still experiencing warming, even though the global mean temperature has been has been basically flat for 12-16 years (depending on which set of number you choose)."

Who knows, it depends how trustworthy the data is and how reliable are the "adjustments" that climatologists made to the temp record. Given that hyper politicized alarmist hacks like Phil Jones and James Hansen had their thumbs on the scales, I don't trust their work at all.

Big Mike said...

Warmer than normal? Global climate change!

Colder than normal? Just weather.

Roux said...

Eff AlGore... oh wait Jennifer Rubin says we are supposed to play nice.... sorry