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 18 hours ago18 hr 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 2 hours ago2 hr 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).