Saturday, November 18, 2006

Climate change threat to native Irish woodland

Phenology is the science of recording natural regularly occurring events, such as the annual timing of leaf budding and spring blossoms. Over many years, collection of this information of seasonal occurrences can help demonstrate how climate change may be affecting wildlife habitats, for instance by influencing trees to come into bud burst earlier.

Phenology provides some of the longest written biological records in Ireland. Based on such records, Ireland's Native Woodland Trust believes that climate change is a major threat to what little remains of Ireland's ancient woodland:

Steady increase in temperatures
"The 20th century has seen a steady increase in temperature with 1990s being the warmest on record. The mean temperature for January-March in the 1960s was 4.2°C compared to 5.6°C in the 1990s. The mean temperature in the spring 1999 was 6.1°C. Phenology offers real evidence that climate change is happening now and that it is already having a significant effect on our wildlife. Trees are coming into leaf sooner, and some typical spring flowers are increasingly being seen coming into bloom in November and December. Butterflies are appearing earlier, with evidence that some are begining to overwinter in Ireland. New birds, such as Egrets, and insects, such as some Dragonflies, are moving northwards into Ireland, with some other migratory species showing signs of staying year-round."
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The island of ireland

Once upon a time, and for 15000 years, ice a mile high blanketed Ireland. When the lingering Ice Age finally released and the Irish ice departed it left a landscape scoured. Across land bridges linking Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe plants and animals arrived to colonise the new lowlands, mountains and valleys. The world’s ice continued to melt, the sea levels to rise, and some 8000 years ago Ireland became the island we now know, accounting for just 0.01% of the world's total land area and the most westerly point of Europe.

Though at Alaskan latitudes, the country's climate is tempered, due partly to the neighbouring waters of the Gulf Stream and partly the prevailing southwesterlies that veering and backing make landfall on our sodden coast. These offerings from the Atlantic mean it is never too hot, never too cold. But without doubt it is wet. Rain lingers year round, never far away, though is most frequent in winter, the western counties and, inevitably, on the day of your parade.