Is anybody else seeing signs of climate change?

[Kansas Terri]

The last 2 winters have been so very severe. Last winter I lost a rose that was supposed to be hardy to zone 2 (--40 degrees Fahrenheit or Celsius). It simply died.

Now, I know that our winds are hard on roses, but generally if a plant is hardy to zone 4 it is safe enough! (We are in zone 5, which has a low of -15 Fahrenheit or -26 Celsius).. It only got to -13 Fahrenheit last winter, but the winds were pretty bad and when we hit -13 the temp-s stayed that low for a few days. That is very unusual.

Well, the rose was not as pretty as I had hoped- it only held a good rose shape for about 15 seconds- but it was the only rose that had wintered over for me and I am sad to have lost it.What has caught my attention was that this rose had been bred for our winters but it died anyways.

Everybody gets an unusual season now and then, but it seems the last 2 years have been remarkable worldwide . SOMEBODY always has a drought or unusual cold or whatever, but I am getting the impression now that almost EVERYBODY is seeing odd weather for the last few years. ,

How about you folks? Was your plant loss this winter unusual? I know that Great Britain got a remarkable amount of rain, and we got a remarkable amount of cold and wind.

 

[headfullofbees]

Two winters is weather, not climate.

What you describe is the norm.
There has been a huge increase in weather reporting for the purpose of supposedly corroborating man-made climate change.

See when they say, "It's the worst in 120 years?" That means it happened 120 years ago.
See when they say, "It's the worst since records began?" Well some records have only been accurate for a decade.

 

[Chuck]

Climate is never static, it is in perpetual change.

 

[Kansas Terri]

Yes, for the above reasons I never worried much about climate change. In fact when they started blaming it on the presence of cattle I laughed my head off: there have been ruminants flourishing on this world for thousands of years.

But, it has not been 2 years of bad weather, it has been roughly 5. The last 2 years were simply highly unusual, while the three preceding years were merely on the severe end of what is usual weather. .

 

[Chuck]

Yes, for the above reasons I never worried much about climate change. In fact when they started blaming it on the presence of cattle I laughed my head off: there have been ruminants flourishing on this world for thousands of years.

But, it has not been 2 years of bad weather, it has been roughly 5. The last 2 years were simply highly unusual, while the three preceding years were merely on the severe end of what is usual weather. .

Here in Texas we have been in a severe drought for 9 years, the worst since the 50's. The winters fluctuate, this year it was really cold and last year it was incredibly warm.

 

[claudine]

I think that climate is changing. I see clear signs of it. In my area, winters are shorter and warmer and summers aren't as hot as they were when I was a kid.
In my opinion those are good changes
I'm a little worried though, because I heard that it will rain intensely during this whole week. This means that there is a possibility of a flood

 

[Trellum]

I saw something so odd in the Netherlands, the winter over there was so dang short and warm it felt more like a really chilly autumn! The strangest thing was that things had already started blooming!!! It was crazy, by February 1st things were so darn green like there was never a winter and blooms were already there. I'm talking about the north!

 

[firelily99]

I believe that the climate is in fact changing, there are too many sign posts that indicate it to believe otherwise. It is the lack of attentiveness by humans and their need to conquer nature that is the root cause.

 

[Kansas Terri]

I think it will be yet another short growing season for us.

We are famous for our grain production and that will not be hurt, but us folk who raise flowers and vegetables may get a shortened time of harvest AGAIN! After all, it takes perhaps 90 days to pick that first tomato, and if the season is shorter then we will have perhaps 8 weeks of picking tomatos instead of 16 weeks of picking them.

The best thing about gardening is standing in the garden and deciding which of the vegetables to eat that night and which of the flowers will go into a vase, and two months of this is not enough to suit me! I can stretch the season some because I also have daffodils, but daffodils only bloom once and then they are gone!

Eh. I had to stay inside today, and it must be making me cranky. My usual opinion on global warming is simply that I will wait and see.

Most mornings this time of year I spend half an hour in the garden and today I didn't. It seems to have greatly affected my mood! No doubt I will be more cheerful tomorrow: the kale is large enough to go in, and I can check the seedlings I put in three days ago when I tidy up outside tomorrow. After a long winter there is nothing that lifts a persons mood better than seedlings and the smell of tomato plants!

 

[Robert Cummings]

Anyone who has an interest in Agriculture or Horticulture, who is fourty plus years old must notice the climate changing. My experience is as follows; when I was an apprentice Gardener back in the mid 70s, we used to mow the grass for nine months of the year from March through to end of November, after November it was impossible to mow quite simply because it was too wet, frosty or covered in snow, anyway the grass just wasn't growing. Nowadays its not uncommon to see folks cutting grass at any time of the year, it doesn't stop growing, so the winters are becoming warmer and summers hotter, storms are becoming more frequent and more ferocious. I believe its no coincidence that skin cancer is on the increase as the ozone layer breaks down. I may be wrong but I can only go by my experiences for what there worth.

 

[Chuck]

Anyone who has an interest in Agriculture or Horticulture, who is fourty plus years old must notice the climate changing. My experience is as follows; when I was an apprentice Gardener back in the mid 70s, we used to mow the grass for nine months of the year from March through to end of November, after November it was impossible to mow quite simply because it was too wet, frosty or covered in snow, anyway the grass just wasn't growing. Nowadays its not uncommon to see folks cutting grass at any time of the year, it doesn't stop growing, so the winters are becoming warmer and summers hotter, storms are becoming more frequent and more ferocious. I believe its no coincidence that skin cancer is on the increase as the ozone layer breaks down. I may be wrong but I can only go by my experiences for what there worth.

My dad was born in 1912. When he was growing up, about 100 miles from where I am now, he always said that the winters always had snow and that the first snow was when they butchered their hogs for the coming year. It doesn't snow anymore here, maybe a flurry every 10 years or so. This warming has been going on for a loooong time. Back in the mid 1800's some guy chased a bear from Bolivar Peninsula to Annaquac of which the area is nothing but salt water called Galveston Bay. The entire bay froze all the way to what is now Houston. The only thing strange about this was the bear which was why it is recorded. The bears had supposedly all been killed years before. The last time the bay froze was in 1899. This craze called climate change/global warming is nothing new. The only new part of climate change is the availability to know the weather everywhere on earth instantly through the news media. I fully expect it to keep getting warmer until the earth decides to start a cooling process again as it always has. And yes, I am one of those deniers who doesn't believe humans are the cause for the phenomenon.

 

[DirtMechanic]

I have a fig that dies back below 10 degrees. the first time was 20 yers ago. According to nasa and some others we are in a solar cooling cycle. Your perceived facts that impact your beliefs and therefore attitudes are influenced by media selling advertisement slots Take comfort in the fact that you have discovered this website.

 

[roadrunner]

I'm sorry, but I'm also another one of those despicable deniers

 

[Silentrunning]

Me too.

 

[Sheal]

Climate does change. I read a lot of British history and going back through the ages the weather patterns back then, year after year, could be just as extreme as we have now. The likes of Bede a Benedictine monk who lived during the late 7th and early 8th century, and also 'The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles' tell me/us such. What we are experiencing now weather wise I believe to be a natural phenomenon as the planet we live on goes through one of it's many cycles, from ice ages to so called global warming. The human race isn't completely guilt-less though with what we discard into the air, land and seas. However, it's recently been announced that the hole in the Ozone Layer has now almost completely closed. Something to think on?