A change in climate: Global warming in Wisconsin

[pk]

Following the example of her pioneering father, Nina Leopold Bradley has documented our warming planet's effects on our state. The trend has us heading toward a new climate. Right now we're at the brink.


On a warm winter day, Nina Leopold Bradley walked nimbly along a trail to a weather-beaten cabin that figures prominently in modern environmental history.
Bradley is 89 years old, and using a pair of hiking poles, she pointed out places where she has recorded the arrival of spring for the last 30 years. Her father, the famed ecologist and pioneer of wildlife management Aldo Leopold, had done the same before her.

But spring's advance has been so dramatic that if Leopold were alive today, he'd have to rewrite parts of his seminal book, "A Sand County Almanac."

Take, for example, the Canada geese. Leopold wrote that they "tumbled out of the sky like maple leaves" in March.

But records by his daughter show that migratory geese are returning home more than a month sooner - now arriving about Feb. 19.

The differences chronicled by father and daughter along the Wisconsin River in Sauk County mirror hundreds of studies worldwide that show that the climate is changing.

If many of the predictions about global warming come true, it will create a new climate for Wisconsin and pose sweeping social, economic and environmental challenges.

FULL STORY HERE: http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=581844

[pk]

Other changes documented in Wisconsin include the earlier bloom of the pussy willow - a tree with silky buds and favored by many nature lovers as an early sign of spring.
Mark D. Schwartz of UW-Milwaukee found that the plant and a flowering herb called scilla bloomed nearly three weeks earlier in southwestern Wisconsin in 1998 than in 1965. Other regions of the state showed less change, but the trend "sticks out like a branch," Schwartz said.

This picture was taken at the Chiwaukee Prairie last Friday (March 23rd). By the looks of the pussy willows I would say they were blooming for awhile.

If you look closely in the front of the picture you can see the white of the pussy willows. I thought the pussy willows were early but didn't realize how early until I read this article.


pk

[pk]

here is a closer picture of the pussy willows in bloom.

[MrKhay]

Global warming/climate change is a natural occurrence, it's been happening since the beginning of earth's existence. Nothing we can do about it, just watch and learn.