Backyard Nature Wednesday: My poor confused camellia

Groundhog Day in our area dawned gray and cloudy. No groundhog saw his shadow here. I guess that means our "winter" is just about over. The winter that never was.

In early February, our thermometers have yet to record any freezing temperatures. Some areas of the yard have experienced very light frost, but for the most part, my garden has been frost-free. This has led to a lot of confusion among my plants.

For example, I have this old camellia named 'Mabel Bryan' that has lived in my yard for seven years. It has always bloomed in late March or early April, but for the last few weeks, I've been watching these fat buds grow.

And this week, the buds opened up, assuming, I think, that it was several weeks later into the season than the calendar shows.

It's always a treat to see these bright blooms, but it is a little unsettling to have them so early.

Many other plants in the yard have fat buds already when they would normally still be dormant, and, of course, some have not had any dormancy at all. A gardener has to wonder just what that will mean, long-term, for her garden.

For one thing, I would anticipate a major battle with insects this summer because there's been no weather cold enough to kill them off. More food for the toads, anoles, and birds, I suppose. Nature gives as well as takes away. It's all about balance. 

Climatologists explain it all

Some parts of the country continue to be hit by some pretty freaky cold winter weather. How can this be happening if global warming is for real and not a hoax as the right-wing deniers claim? Well, very easily actually.

Here's a short film that was put together with input from several meteorologists that explains it all rather succinctly.

Biologists consider the consequences of a warm winter

All across North America, the adjective that has most often been used to describe the winter we are currently experiencing is "mild." January and February which often bring the harshest winter weather with plenty of snow and ice and below-freezing temperatures have been unusually warm this year. Although there have been isolated snow storms and some periods of cold weather, they have been few and far between and of short duration.

Scientists considering the implications of these weeks of relative warmth in what is usually the coldest part of winter speculate that when all the data is collected, this winter may be close to an all-time record breaker. While a mild winter in North America is still considered a rare event, it is likely that such winters will be much less rare in the future. And that has serious consequences for plants and animals whose lives are bound to the cycle of seasons.

Plants are flowering earlier than ever and, while it is a boost to the spirits to see these bright colors in the middles of a season that is usually mostly brown, since most places in the country still have the possibility of a freeze for several weeks yet, if a freeze does occur, it could destroy those early blooms and, with them, the hope of any fruit from those blooms. This, of course, is of particular concern to farmers, horticulturalists, and home gardeners who grow fruit trees and vines. If an apple tree flowers early and then gets hit by a frost, there goes any possibility of an apple crop this year.

It's not only plants that are affected. Plants and their pollinators - bees, moths, birds, etc. - are normally in sync. The pollinators show up just as the appropriate plants are blooming and they do their jobs. But if the plants bloom early, the pollinators may or may not be there at just the right time and the job of pollination may not get done.

Moreover, animals such as birds time their breeding to occur at a time of plenty. Birds' migration patterns are related to the time of hatch of their prey insects or to the production of the particular plant on which they feed. Early warming throws all of that carefully calibrated mating dance into chaos.

Climate scientists always say that they cannot draw conclusions on the basis of one season or one weather event, but as unusual and downright freakish weather events continue to happen with increased frequency right around the world, the conclusion seems inevitable to me. The climate is warming and we are the ones who lit the fire. Of course, that won't convince the dedicated deniers who just stick their fingers in their ears and shout, "La, la, la, la, la, la!"  But denying what's happening won't stop it from happening.

Brrr!!!

As much of the country prepares for one of the worst winter storms in decades, one is led to wonder once again just what the heck is going on in the world of weather.

For example, I read a story in The New York Times recently that stated that while parts of the southern United States have had record snowfalls and cold this winter, 2,000 miles to the north in northeastern Canada and Greenland, it has been freakishly warm, both this winter and last. Their temperatures in December ran as much as 15 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit above normal. This has had an economic impact because bays and lakes have been slow to freeze and so ice fishing, hunting and trade routes have been disrupted.

What's going on here? Is this a result of global warming? Scientists warn that it is almost impossible to link a particular weather event to the larger issue of global warming, but it is very difficult for the layperson to believe that it is not somehow related. Theories about the effects of global warming have postulated that it could generate extreme weather events right around the world, and we certainly have seen some extreme events in the last twelve months, from the floods that devastated Pakistan and, now, Australia, to the Arctic chill that has descended on Europe and North America over the last two winters.

The immediate cause of our extremely cold weather seems to be that a pattern of atmospheric circulation that has in the past tended to keep frigid air locked in the Arctic has weakened considerably during the last two winters. The gate has been left open on the Arctic "fence" that kept the cold air in and that has allowed cold air to push far into the south, while at the same time warmer air has been sucked into the north. And the reason for this change MAY be that the ice on the Arctic Ocean's surface declined in September by more than 30 percent. Ice reflects sunlight, so when there is less of it the ocean absorbs more heat. That heat affects the atmospheric pressure and the circulation of air.

It's complicated and I certainly don't pretend to understand the half of it, but as we enter February with temperatures here in Southeast Texas expected to descend possibly all the way into the teens this week, we could wish that someone would find a way to shut and lock that Arctic "gate" once again.

AHHHRRRGGGH!!!!!!!

So now our elected representatives in Washington think that it might not be possible to pass a bill addressing global climate change and its adverse affects on the future of humankind (and, incidentally, the world) because it is SNOWING IN WASHINGTON??? They think it would be TOO HARD to convince people to vote for it because it is cold on the East Coast in February!!! AHHHRRRGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are these people f... er...uh...you know, what Rahm said? Apparently they are. And that is being overly kind.

Can they really be so uninformed that they do not understand that weather is not climate and that because it is cold in the northern hemisphere in winter does not mean that the earth is not heating up? Because it is, you know. The year 2009 was the second warmest year since records have been kept, beginning in the 1800s. It was the end of the warmest decade ever recorded. The hottest year on record also occurred in that decade - 2005. They could read all about this on the NASA website - if they ever bothered to read reports put out by government agencies that are charged with tracking such things. They could also find that the evidence for abrupt climate change, outside the realm of normal fluctuations in Nature, is overwhelming.

Since they evidently do not read, here for the written-word-challenged representatives and anyone else who may not understand is a link to a visual presentation on YouTube that may just help.

Watch and try to understand, Inhofe. Then you and your whole global climate change denying family meet me on the steps of the Capitol on August 9 and explain to me how the earth is not heating up. That would be the most hilarious entertainment I'm likely to get on my birthday.