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news
Tour of Flanders 2015 (licensed CC BY 2.0 by S Yuki on Flickr)Study: Tour of Flanders provides proof of global warming
Ecologists have said that the Tour of Flanders provides evidence of how climate change is affecting the natural world.
Researchers at Ghent University studied TV footage of the race, normally held at the start of April from the past four decades, The Ecologist reports.
Despite some tweaks over the years, over that period the race has taken in much of the same course and climbs.
What they found was that between 1981 and 2016, trend was that leaves were appearing on trees and flowers were blooming earlier in the year.
Their findings are published today in the journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, with researchers correlating the appearance of leaves and flowers on the course with data relating to climate
Prior to 1990, there were virtually no leaves to be seen on the trees lining the course, but gradually over the decades they can increasingly be seen in the TV footage.
Some species, and especially magnolia, hawthorn, hornbeam and birch trees, were observed to be already in full leaf,
According to the study, since 1980 average temperatures in Flanders have risen by 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Professor Pieter De Frenne said: “Early-leafing trees can be good news for some species as they grow faster and produce more wood.
“However, their leaves also cast shadows. When trees flush earlier in the year, they shadow for a longer period of time, affecting other animals and plants, and even whole ecosystems.
“Some of the flowers growing under these trees may not be able to receive enough sunlight to bloom.
“As a result, insects can go without nectar and may struggle to find enough spots to sunbathe.”,
He added: “Our method could also be used to collect data on other aspects important for ecological or evolutionary research, such as tree health, water levels in rivers and lakes, and the spread of invasive species.
“Only by compiling data from the past will we be able to predict the future effects of climate change on species and ecosystems.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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14 comments
As an actual earth scientist, which I suspect some people here aren't, let me clarify a couple of things. frogg is perfectly correct to say no-one's talking about global warming anymore, it's now climate change. That's coz global warming, per se, is now *established fact*, not a case of maybe, maybe not. The last year when global average temperature was below the trend average was 1976. That's 44 consecutive years of above average temperatures. The odds of that happening purely by chance (& yes, I *am* a statistician too - it goes with the territory) are 1 in 20 trillion or so. Do you want to risk the entire future of the planet in a game of Russian Roulette where the gun has 20,000,000,000,000 chambers & only 1 isn't loaded?
There's loads of other evidence for global warming. A particularly simple & elegant dataset from the University of Fairbanks, covering the dates each year when daily high & low temperatures first exceeded freezing, shows the trend very clearly over the past 100+ years. See https://www.google.com/search?q=university+of+fairbanks+climate+change+o... for an example.
So the issue isn't "Is global warming real?", it's what's causing it, why are average temperatures rising? The sun isn't getting any warmer (really, it's not, despite what you might read on the internet), so what's happening? Well, the only realistic explanation is some sort of climate change. & what is happening in the world that would change the climate? Ah, well now, CO2 is increasing steadily & CO2 causes a greenhouse warming effect - I remember discussing exactly that back in 1972 when I was a graduate student. Before the Industrial Revolution it was a bit under 300 parts per million of the atmosphere. Right now it's 418ppm. This isn't quite proof, but it's highly suggestive, the underlying physics is well established & the causal links are completely credible. Meanwhile no-one, but no-one, has come up with any credible alternative explanation for the global warming we're already experiencing.
We have a clear example right here in the Solar System of the effect of greenhouse warming due to CO2. Read the science about the climate on Venus & why the air there is hot enough to melt lead & then come back & start arguing.
Not one of the doomsday predictions made 30 years ago has been verified ; that's why this scam has since been renamed to 'climate change' from the initial 'global warming' ...
It's not a debate.
You seem to know a lot about this topic; can you provide me with some good evidence that highlights the scam?
FFS...
The "doomsday" predictions made 30 years ago haven't come to pass (yet) because they were generally concerned with the latter half of this century at the earliest.
However, there is overwhelming scientific consensus that what we are seeing now is generally consistent with modeling, supporting predictions made concerning the longer term.
If you genuinely believe what you are saying, I'd suggest this recent article as a good starting point: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/are-past-climates-telling-us-wer...
(You should note the large numbers of quality links and other references included in that article, something which is so far lacking in your comments)
The point is that what we are seeing now is the beginning of a long-term reaction to increased CO2. The processes involved are massively complicated, so the precise effects and consequences are difficult to predict with precision. But the overall picture is clear, and it's not good. It's really not good for our kids and grandkids.
If we carry on as we are, the situation for our great-grandkids and their kids may be truly catastrophic.
Unless of course the ice sheets do start breaking off en masse. Then we are screwed.
(edit: spelling is hard)
How dumb would you have to be to think that 'big environment' has the financial muscle to out-influence the international hydrocarbons lobby?
Sadly science (any science) is tainted by money and people striving to make the evidence fit the theory. Keep coming up with the right answers and keep getting funded. Remember how were were going to run out of oil by now? Actually it was first theorised we were going to run out of oil in the 70s.
There's so many factual points out there you can twist anything to any agenda. Apparently agriculture is more polluting per pound of revenue than industry in the UK. STOP ALL AGRICULTURE, SAVE THE PLANET! An electric car's total carbon footprint is greater than the equivalent petrol car. BAN ELECTRIC CARS, SAVE THE PLANET! Disc brakes maimed and killed hundreds of pro cyclists. BAN DISC BRAKES, SAVE THE CYCLISTS FROM THEMSELVES AND THE CYCLING INDUSTRY MAKING YOU BUY A NEW BIKE EVEN THOUGH YOU DON'T REALLY NEED ONE. THAT NEW BIKE JUST KILLED THE PLANET A BIT MORE.
We're never going to run out of oil in a literal sense. As oil gets harder to retrieve, the cost will naturally increase (despite subsidies) and other fuels will become more cost-effective (e.g. solar). As that trend increases, we'll end up with only the 1% able to fuel their classic cars (everyone else will have robot driven flying cars that are fuelled by miniature suns or somesuch) and there will still be lots of oil underground but just in tiny pockets that aren't worth drilling for (fracking would seem to be the latest way of countering this).
Quite - the estimates of oil "running out" were based on current reserves and extraction techniques, combined with economical factors. Methods of finding fossil fuels have improved (unfortunately...) and techniques have improved and/or entirely new techniques are being used. None of that changes the environmental impact nor evidence for climate change/global warming. And if governments and major corporations had started the investment in renewables that is now being done way back in the 80's, we'd be in a far better position than we are now.
On the evidence point, the pedant in me takes issue with the headline for this story. The actual story correctly says that the footage is evidence of climate change. It's very far from proof of climate change by itself.
Idiot.
Note that , as fake evidence is waning, it's not 'global warning' anymore, it has been changed to a more vague 'climate change' story ... the greatest scam of all times brought to you by the presstitutes.
You seem to know a lot about this topic; can you provide me with some good evidence that highlights the scam?
Well, not this year.
Nothing even started to green up until May this year in the UK. April was freezing.