News Brief by Kip Hansen — 24 May 2024

There has been a lot of silly nonsense in the mass media about Early Springs.  Concerns that the season, Spring, has been coming days or even, in some cases. weeks earlier than “it did before”.   Worries have been expressed that the timing of natural events, such as bird migrations and the emergence of their food species will become out of synchronization —  migrating birds may arrive before their favorite bugs are available to eat in the North – or before the nectar flowers hummingbirds need for  nourishment bloom. 

Almost every mass media outlet has banged on about how earlier Spring has lengthened the allergy season – and, that is correct:  trees, grasses, weeds, flowers all bloom and spread pollen in accordance with the seasons.   Naturally, if Spring temperatures come a week earlier than the oft-touted “long term average”, then plants will act accordingly, and off they go.

This image is from the ever-alarmist Climate Central for the year 2020. Of course, keeping in line with the editorial narratives of Climate Alarmism, the Media seldom, if ever, mention the positive side of Early Spring.  Early Springs and later Falls mean a longer growing seasons and that means more food.  In many cases, agriculturalists (farmers, ranchers, orchardists, truck farmers) are able to get two crops out of a single field in the same year.  Dairy farmers in my area, most of whom grow their own feed, are getting an extra cutting of hay.   In double-cropping systems, an extra three or four weeks in the growing season can make a huge difference.

Journalists for national and international newspapers and broadcast news are, in a general sense, “city people”.  They don’t live on the land and are easily led astray about things in the natural world.  Even if they are outdoor hobbyists or enthusiasts, they just don’t get it.  The natural world has its own timing, its own cycles, and its own methods of keeping itself going.  If not, we wouldn’t be here.  

PHENOLOGY — which is the “the study of the timing and cyclical patterns of events in the natural world, particularly those related to the annual life cycles of plants, animals, and other living things” — can enlighten us to the true situation.  We’re in luck, in the United States, we have the marvelous USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) [which has supplied out news for the day], whose staff members are employees of the University of Arizona, and is sponsored by the University of Arizona, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (both of which are sections of the U.S. Department of the Interior), the National Science Foundation (an independent U.S. Federal agency),  the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And the incredible iconic Saguaro Cactus?  It is in bloom!

Finally…Spring has come to Arizona, finally. 

This is the “Spring Leaf Index Anomaly” – it shows an index of the timing of Spring Leaf Out as a proxy for Arrival of Spring.  How many days “earlier” than the long-term average or how many days “later” than the long-term average. 

It is quite interesting.  The three neutral colors (very pale beige, white, and very pale blue) show where Spring has arrived well within the average expected timing.  The deep reddish/brownish, though quite dark, represents where Spring arrived 10-14-21 days sooner than average, and the blues mean that Spring was late.

Florida, southern Texas, coastal Gulf states and the majority of the Intermountain West  have had a later than usual Spring this year. 

The general public has been repeatedly informed in the press that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are warmer than usual – much warmer, so they say.

I would have thought that all that hot water would have forced an Early Spring on the Gulf Coast – but, apparently Nature didn’t agree. 

The Saguaro Cactus know when Spring has arrived but not by looking at the calendar:

Arizona’s saguaro cactus bloom is running four weeks late this year.

Just to make comparison easy, I put 2024 side-by-side with 2020:

In 2020, the pattern was almost a mirror image of 2024.  Only the mid-Atlantic states are early in both years.

Bottom Line:

In a world that has slightly warmed, coming up out of the Little Ice Age (finally), Spring comes when it will, different every year.

It would be no surprise, at least in North America, if in general, Spring is arriving a few days earlier as the North American climate gently warms a bit:

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Author’s Comment:

The fears that somehow Nature will get out of sync with itself are a dystopian fantasy.   It is surely possible that some individual anomalously-timed season in some region or locality could take place and play havoc, temporarily, with some of the plants and animals.   Looking at the long-term climate records, for what they are worth, reveals that there have been periods of rapidly changing temperatures, and certainly rapidly changing precipitation regimes, at various times and places which must have changed things up for the living inhabitants.  That, my friends, as they say, is life.

Much of the beauty of the world comes from the changes we can see in the passing of the seasons, particularly, but not limited to, areas that have a full four-season cycle, such as I have in the Central Hudson Valley of New York State.   I really missed the seasons during the decades I spent in the tropics.

Thanks for reading.

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