“Autumn burned brightly, a running flame through the mountains, a torch flung to the trees.”
Faith Baldwin, Author
Most people now understand the connection between warmer temperatures and extreme weather events like flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, and drought. But there are countless less obvious connections. It turns out fall foliage is yet another thing impacted by climate change.
Where I live, it is definitely starting to look and feel like autumn. Although most days are still warm, it’s much cooler at night, and mornings are crisp. I’m looking out my window as I write this, seeing the first peeks of yellow and orange. While summer still ranks as my favorite season, fall is close behind. For me it means college football, sweaters, Honeycrisp apples, and vibrant colors. So when I saw an article about the impact of climate change on fall foliage, I wanted to learn more.
Fall foliage and climate change
Climate Central, a non-profit focused on communicating the science of climate change, recently reported on how the warming planet is altering fall foliage. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that leaf patterns are affected by the climate. Elementary school science taught us that trees respond to the conditions of their environment including sunlight, temperature, precipitation, and wind. But I had never given much thought to how climate change would impact the colors.
According to Climate Central, both the timing and the brilliance of foliage are being impacted by our warmer world. Temperature and rainfall are integral in determining when and how the leaves change, and alterations to both are linked to the acceleration of warmer surface temperatures. Extreme weather events like wildfires and hurricanes also affect foliage.
Cool nights and warm days are among the factors creating brighter colors. We seem to have the warm days covered; it’s the cool nights that are a problem. Climate Central’s research found that fall nights have warmed over the last 40 years in 87% of the locations studied.
Here are a few graphics on the relationship between climate and foliage:
Compared to the devastation people are facing from weather-related events, fall foliage changes seem trivial. But foliage season is a big economic engine in many regions of the US. Shorter and less impressive seasons can make a real difference to small businesses and communities that rely upon leaf-peeping visitors. This is just one more reason solving climate change is so important.
Let’s do something about climate change. Learn about it. Think about it. Talk about it.