This chart of Japanese cherry blossom seasons going back to 812AD seems to support the onset date of the current climate change cycle as happening during the industrial revolution. of the mid-1800's.

Another hockey stick. Also reminding that the Medieval Warm Period was not globally uniform. Warmer in the north Atlantic region, but not in the Far East (though data back then was kind of spotty).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

Cool take. Saw fully blooming cherry blossom trees in a small German town just last week and did the Washington DC peak bloom trip with my kids this time last year. Hadn’t realized we’d have had to plan same trip for April during earlier centuries but it completely makes sense

In my ~25 years in the DC area I saw the noticeable advancement of the cherry blossom peak and a corresponding shift in the fall foliage

I can tell you the maple syrup season has gotten earlier by at least a couple weeks in Pennsylvania as well. When I was a kid back in the 60's, we never put a tap in the trees before the first week of March. Now, if you aren't tapped by the middle of February you will miss at least one hard run* of sap.

*Maple trees produce the most sap when it freezes at night and gets warm in the day and the earlier in the season syrup will usually be a lighter (in color) grade and considered better than later product.

2 hours ago, npts2020 said:

I can tell you the maple syrup season has gotten earlier by at least a couple weeks in Pennsylvania as well. When I was a kid back in the 60's, we never put a tap in the trees before the first week of March. Now, if you aren't tapped by the middle of February you will miss at least one hard run* of sap.

*Maple trees produce the most sap when it freezes at night and gets warm in the day and the earlier in the season syrup will usually be a lighter (in color) grade and considered better than later product.

It appears so. I found this graphic of how tapping season is shifting earlier with rising average temperatures over time.

https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/maple-syrup-season

Charts I've found so far go back to the 70's.

Edited April 4Apr 4 by StringJunky

Lilac bushes in our yard leaf out a couple weeks earlier than they used to. Ditto honeysuckle. And grass has been resuming growth earlier - due to the very mild winter this year, we saw green shoots pushing up (and mule deer nibbling them) at the end of March. Normal for this semiarid stretch of South Dakota has been end of April.

We had ten deer in our yard yesterday. (they usually don't graze destructively, but earlier in winter some were chewing bark off the lilacs, so I started spreading human hair trimmings around the base, which works pretty well to keep them off. We also keep a large antique bike horn (with the squeeze bulb) on the kitchen counter - when we noticed them near the lilacs we could flip up the window, give a few honks, and they'd scatter. We don't usually run out and yell at them, because then they'll avoid the property entirely, and we lose their weed control and fertilizer contribution. And, oh yeah, the charm.

Edited April 5Apr 5 by TheVat

16 hours ago, StringJunky said:

It appears so. I found this graphic of how tapping season is shifting earlier with rising average temperatures over time.

https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-matters/maple-syrup-season

Charts I've found so far go back to the 70's.

I imagine prior to the 70's it flattens out. My grandfather, who had made maple syrup since at least the early 1920's, was really set on not tapping before the beginning of March but by the time he died in 1986 we would have already been either missing the first run or tapping while it was happening more years than not. It was like parting the Red Sea, and took missing an early run or two previously, when we finally got him to agree to tap on February 24 for the first time. Now it is more like second week of February, depending on weather forecasts (I am a big fan of the Penn State meteorology department forecasts).

Whilst cherry blossoms in Japan by themselves are more a regional indicator than global similar records within horticulture with a variety of species - spring budding, flowering, Autumn leaf falls etc - showing that same warming trend around the world.

We are not short of clear indicators of a major climate shift being in progress, just short on commitments to doing much about it. I think that if solar/wind/batteries had failed to break the cost barrier and begin to scale we would be in a much worse position, with much less progress on decarbonising energy. Arguing about nuclear, doing it at inadequate scales, with higher levels of 'but decarbonising transport is too hard and our industry is essential to the economy' (without battery EV's)?

@Ken Fabian , thinking about those needed commitments, as I drove through our epic American drought, I wrote this [edited] to a friend:

Traveling this week, I reflected on the drought as I drove through a charred area somewhere between Hyannis and Mullen, Nebraska. (It was interesting how you could see where the fire had jumped the road, but then some places stopped dead by the railway embankment just past the road) Beef is now more problematic, and you don't want too much grazing on parched land - that's how goats increased desertification in the Sahel region which borders Sahara. And it will be wrenching for farmers trying to shift from their usual grain to drought-hardy cropping. Drought-hardy invariably means fewer calories/acre, so you have to pick something that brings a good price - pearl millet is one, sometimes called "the last crop standing." I expect [a coeliac friend of ours] would not be displeased if the wheat belt became a millet belt. And the Ogallala Aquifer might just survive, if economic forces and political will can make such a shift.

Some current madness, like growing so many leafy grains in AZ, will have to end, and I'm already hearing about plans to shift more of the salad belt to California where it makes more ecological sense. We shouldn't be draining the Colorado dry for a f-ing salad. If a drought spurs that shift, that might be a longterm benefit. Arizona was not meant to be cropland, and these parched years are underscoring that reality.

Long-term, I can see beef being more a luxury food, ranchers then getting the higher prices they need, and maybe with viable reduced herds the high plains don't turn into a Sahel-hole. 🤠

As for [a farmer in the Nebraska Panhandle], yes, no-till cropping seems like a good start. Take care of your grass and your soil moisture. Stop voting for the Great Denialist, too, and his ilk??

Meanwhile, a massive silver lining is developing around the world from the Iran/Gulf situation, as countries scramble to being more renewable installations online as they no longer trust oil/LNG as a reliable import. Read something in the Post a couple days ago about Philippines rushing a gigawatt solar project in a time frame of WEEKS! And Indonesia is going all out on massive hydro. The silvering lining may soon tarnish, however, as some places are ramping up coal, in response. As always: F--- TRUMP.