Brad RosenheimThe ultimate #ClimateDiary entry - 600 pages of N. American plant data from nearly 200 years ago!
https://www.tampabay.com/news/weather/2025/01/06/smithsonian-institution-climate-change-florida/
This is really cool research. One fundamental question with climate change is how will we tell if it is actually happening. It sounds ridiculous, but by definition, a change in climate is a change from a robust average of meteorologic conditions. How well that average is defined is of utmost importance when we make such a comparison, but, for a lot of observations we are able to make today, we were not able to make those observations long ago. Therefore, we do not generally have a strong, well-defined baseline climate for a lot of time periods and places. Regions like Europe have long temperature records that are generally comparable with those today. Areas of the ocean, including deep waters, do not. This is problematic because the ocean is the single most important driver of Earth's climate system. We often have to seek oral histories and other non-normalized, but important data types, in order to compare with our instrumental record.
All that to say that this publication from the mid 19th century is a gold mine for climate change research. In this case, the Tampa Bay Times article refers to a research paper published in the journal (magazine) Nature that used the data in the old publication to test the predictions of phenologic models. These models try to understand the timing and cyclicity of processes such as migration, bloom, seasonal die-off, etc. and how these cycles will be affected by climate change. These studies can be quite a bit more challenging for finding an adequate baseline for comparison than, say, a temperature record. That is why this is so cool!
It also underscores the importance of maintenance of information, libraries, archives, etc. The contributors to this 19th century publication probably had little idea how important it would be to researchers today! (It is like a dream for all of us scientists that our publications will have any relevance after 25 years, let alone almost 2 centuries!).
#libraries
#archives
#InformationSecurity
#InformationPreservation
Here is the link to the article in Nature that the Tampa Bay Times refers to. Nature is a magazine which charges exorbitant fees to view the published works within, even if those works were funded in the public domain. Sadly, there is a good chance that this is paywalled :(.
Phenological response to climatic change depends on spring warming velocity - Communications Earth & Environment
Spring temperature velocity impacts cycles of plant flowering and leaf-out, and realized change is greatest in areas where warming is most rapid, according to a model framework tested against Eastern USA plant phenology data.
Nonya Bidniss@Brad_Rosenheim Doesn't seem to be paywalled. I cancelled my sub to Nature a few years ago when Springer I believe purchased it, in any case they doubled the fee. I used to get it for the same price as Science. Now I just read the non-paywalled parts.
@Nonya_Bidniss Great news, thanks! I'm glad the link will work - I don't like to post paywalled things, but it is hard to avoid in this case (both the Tampa Bay Times and Nature!).
Looking at the Nature article, it looks like the authors paid for Open Access. Kudos to them. For those who don't know what that entails, it generally coats authors around $3500 to publish open access. Once paid, links to the articles can be shared freely. Nature charges a lot more for Open Access - more than $10,000! These funds generally come from our research grants, so they are often paid with public moneys. I think that is a worthwhile investment but some may see it as a thinly-veiled grab of public funds with publicly-funded research the hostage.