Take That, Punxsutawney Phil: Science Says Spring Will Arrive 3 Weeks Earlier - Next Century, Anyway

Scientists writing in Environmental Research Letters estimate that the onset of spring plant growth will shift by a median of three weeks over the next century - and global warming is to blame. The scholars from University of Wisconsin-Madison applied the extended Spring Indices to predict the dates of leaf and flower emergence based on day length. These general models capture the phenology of many plant species.  Their results show particularly rapid shifts in plant phenology in the Pacific Northwest and Mountainous regions of the western US, with smaller shifts in southern areas, where spring already arrives early. Much of their data is available at http://silvis.forest.wisc.edu/ read more

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