It is an indisputable fact that a series of crises caused by climate change have become indisputable, and in most parts of the world, the "eccentricity" derived from the climate crisis has begun to attract more and more attention. In 2022, will spring come again? This phenomenon has raised concerns among climatologists because the early arrival of spring may not be a good sign for us.
Over the past 1,200 years, the cherry blossoms in Japan have generally bloomed in mid-April (around the 17th), but due to the impact of climate change, the date has been advanced to March 26 in 2021.
This profound impact on our climate change has also been confirmed by British researchers. The findings, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, are based on the Nature's Calendar database, where the researchers behind it systematically analyzed more than 400,000 observations of 406 plant species, dating back to 1753. The researchers found that the average uk spring flowering time has advanced by a full month over the past 30 years! This is highly positively correlated with the accelerated rise in global temperatures.
From the perspective of geographical orientation, people in low latitudes will feel this seasonal dislocation even more strongly! In other words, the closer you get to the equator, the sooner spring will come. For example, friends living in the south feel that spring is coming early is much stronger than that of northerners! This is manifested in the rise of temperature, the early flowering period, the awakening of insects...
The direct cause of seasonal disorders is the abnormal increase in temperature on Earth from February to March. Climatologists predict that if the current rate of global warming continues, the Earth's spring may gradually advance to February or even earlier. By 2050, the average flowering period in most parts of the planet will be increased by another 5 days, which will trigger a series of serious climatic, ecological and even food crises.
This is not alarmist. When crop plants bloom too early, it is difficult for the flowers affected by frost to survive, which is why spring sowing must avoid frost. In 2017, 80% of peach trees in Georgia, USA, did not harvest because peach trees flowered prematurely and died from a cold wave caused by polar vortexes. In the future, this will happen in more and more regions.
The greater risk of early spring comes from the "match failure" between different associated species – plants, insects, birds and other wild animals have co-evolved into an organic whole, and when spring arrives early, a certain plant enters the flowering period early, and the specific type of insect or bird it attracts cannot be synchronized, which can cause ecosystem disorders. And if ecosystems can't adapt to this change quickly enough, it could lead to the extinction of one of the ring species, or even the collapse of the ecological chain...
参考文献：Plants in the UK flower a month earlier under recent warming. Proc. R. Soc. B.289, 2022.