Climate change ‘tricking’ UK seasons, claims the BBC

Summertime [image credit: BBC]

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The likely implication here is that human activities related to CO2 emissions are the main cause of any modern warming, a heavily-promoted BBC claim for years. But as Nikolov & Zeller’s recent paper has explained, changes in solar radiation linked to cloud albedo are sufficient to account for modern temperature trends. This was backed up a few weeks ago by a new study entitled: ‘Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo’ (H/T Notrickszone). Slightly warmer weather has its benefits anyway.
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Species in the United Kingdom are under threat as they are ‘tricked’ by our seasons shifting with the changing climate, says the BBC.

On average, key events that herald the start of spring are happening nine days earlier, external than a quarter of a century ago.

Data given to BBC Weather by Nature’s Calendar – a citizen science project by the Woodland Trust, external – shows how warming is triggering events associated with the changing seasons to happen earlier in the year.

In 2024, frogspawn appeared at its earliest date on record, 17 days before the average date or benchmark.
. . .
While meteorological and astronomical seasons are known in advance, the way nature behaves in each season is dependent on the weather and climate.

Since 2000, the Woodland Trust has been gathering data via Nature’s Calendar which uses public sightings of plants, animals and fungi to track the effects of weather and climate on nature.

Alex Marshall from Nature’s Calendar, external explained how important the data is to “see how nature is responding to our changing climate”.

The data is used by the Met Office in its annual State of the UK Climate, external report, comparing meteorological data with biological events and their response to weather and climate (phenology).
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Extreme weather has consequences
From all the data gathered by Nature’s Calendar, there are clear trends to changing timescales in our phenology.

Climate change will bring higher temperatures but also more extreme weather leading to confusion amongst some species.

“It’s the unpredictability which is the biggest threat at the moment,” says Ms Marshall.

Full article here.
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Image credit: BBC