April 26, 2012
Spring Sprang Early: Should We Worry?

Should we be battening down the hatches and sounding DEFCON 3 over this warmer-than-seems-sane spring? Not quite. So says Robert Naczi, curator of North American Botany here at the NYBG.

Rather than catastrophic evidence of radical climate change, Naczi says that this seemingly drastic shift to warmer weather is well within the range of experience for plants native to our area. Is there a warming trend? Yes, but this year’s bizarro weather is likely less attributed to overall climate change than it is a climate pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation.

Confused? It’s okay. Click through for a video interview with the brainiacs behind the science. —MN

4:03pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5yKN9-YO
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Filed under: spring weather climate botany 
March 17, 2012
Much as I love the idea of wandering off into the woods to live an austere life of introspection and communion with nature, I have a terrible track record with the transcendentalists. Thoreau gave me migraines. Though his diligent work in recording the seasons while living by Walden Pond seems to have paid off for science. More than I can say for my time spent with him in college. —MN onearth: 150 years ago, Henry Thoreau documented changes in the natural world around him. He scribbled down when he saw flowers first bloom and birds return from their wintering grounds. Today, Thoreau’s notes are helping scientists studying those same species confirm that spring is springing earlier. Is Spring Springing Early? Watching the World Go Round with Henry Thoreau

Much as I love the idea of wandering off into the woods to live an austere life of introspection and communion with nature, I have a terrible track record with the transcendentalists. Thoreau gave me migraines. Though his diligent work in recording the seasons while living by Walden Pond seems to have paid off for science.

More than I can say for my time spent with him in college. —MN

onearth:

150 years ago, Henry Thoreau documented changes in the natural world around him. He scribbled down when he saw flowers first bloom and birds return from their wintering grounds. Today, Thoreau’s notes are helping scientists studying those same species confirm that spring is springing earlier.

Is Spring Springing Early? Watching the World Go Round with Henry Thoreau

12:00pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZV1L5yI7fflo
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Filed under: Thoreau seasons climate 
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