Sarah Wrote That | climate change

Change.org petition to get Discovery Channel to air the climate change episode of Frozen Planet. [earlier]

Central Park foliage
November 4, 2006, 2007, 2009

Re-posting this with Tumblr’s improved photo-set options: same date, same location, three years. I missed last year, and this year again I’m unlikely to be in New York on November 4; so message me [update: photographer found!] if you will be and would be up for snapping a few pics in the park.

Peak color in the Northeast seems to me to be happening about two weeks later than in the early-mid nineties. The change largely happened at once, in 2007, with a delay relative to 2006 of a month or longer that we’ve only half snapped back from, and irregularly; with length and intensity of daylight out of sync with the old patterns of temperature, some things change on their old schedule, others linger. There always used to be a single day, two at most, when everything was brilliant at once, and after that you knew would come purple and brown November.

October 15: 2010 & 2011

Two years, of course, does not a trend make. But it seems to me that in more of the past few years than not, foliage has been duller and later to change than it was the year before. In 2010, though the colors changed later than in 2009, when they did they were full and brilliant. This year, with colder weather finally sweeping in on days of windy rain, many trees have gone directly from green to bare, while others are barely past summer.

climateadaptation:

“Massachusetts Audubon Society ‘State of the Birds’ report: Climate change affecting bird population. Above, the red-bellied woodpecker, primarily a Southern bird, is becoming more common in Massachusetts.”

Source: MassLive

A red-bellied was sounding out my porch last week. It was the first one I’d seen since moving to Massachusetts.

Reblogged from Climate Adaptation

Looking toward the Holyoke Range, from today’s run.

I do love being able to run in short sleeves without bringing home a sore throat (my favorite spring and fall way to get sick), but 80° F and dusk at 6:30, with the sugar maples almost at peak color, is completely disorienting.

fixedsash replied to your photo: Sheep Meadow* *guess what month

September

November!

Totally random and weird. Much of the town still looks like August; then I’ll come across odd spots close to peak. It makes for pretty pictures. But not how I remember this latitude from back in the day. We should be just about peak this weekend and peak is usually only one or two days. I always think of the capital region being a little ahead of us (with frost and foliage, anyway)?

Sherry-Netherland Hotel from Central Park. 2006-08: me / 2009: Ann Rose

Today is midsummer warm in Amherst, 75 Fahrenheit at 9 am when I left for my morning run. It’s eerie; our first cold snap a few weeks ago killed most of the insects, so the woods are still, and enough trees have turned that the hills have a faded tapestry look, but yesterday’s high was 87.

In 2006 and 07 I happened to photograph the same four locations in Central Park on the same day (2006 was on video), and in 2008 I realized I’d again shot enough of the same locations to make it a thing. This year again I’m unlikely to be there; any of you New Yorkers want to take a walk in the park with a camera on Nov 4, give or take a day?

25 Sep 2010 11:51

Four Years Of Foliage

In October 2007 in New York it seemed one couldn’t have a conversation without someone mentioning the warm weather. Not in a smalltalk way—more like the Ancient Mariner, or someone who fears she or he has seen a ghost. The year before I’d been in Central Park shooting video at peak color, and I decided to revisit the same spots. In places, trees that had been leafless by that time in 2006 hadn’t even begun to turn. Peak color came a full two weeks late.

Read on →