Global warming's changes can be felt by the rising temperatures, but there's another visible, springtime indicator of the change our planet's going through according to a new study - flowers are blooming earlier.
Elizabeth R. Ellwood from Boston University and her fellow authors tapped into research from the notebooks of Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold to determine that many species of flowers in the United States are blooming earlier due to rising temperatures.
"From 1852-1858, Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden, observed flowering times in Concord, Massachusetts, USA. And from 1935-1945, Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac, recorded flowering times in Dane County, Wisconsin, USA and near the site of his "Shack" in adjacent Sauk County," the study reads.
"Several recent re-surveys at these locations, nearly 1500km apart, indicate that many spring-flowering plants now flower much earlier than in the past."
The study also states that future changes concerning the flowers' blooming times can be accurately predicted since the correlation between higher temperatures and blooming times seem to be linear. This model will be tested in the coming years, say the scientists.
The research is considered significant because while it only concentrates on two locations, one is in the country, and the other on the coast, meaning the same phenomenon is occurring in places far away from each other.
Read the published study at PLOS One.
In other recent climate change news, another study revealed that soot, or black carbon, is a far more potent driver of global warming than previously thought. In fact, it claims that soot, which is created from inefficient combustion, is the second leading cause of rising temperatures, behind carbon dioxide.
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