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This is a standard shelter exposure.
Im just looking for those blooms.
My advisor, when I was a doctoral student, came to me and said there was this data that
he had. He thought it would be interesting and he said that its phenological data and
I said, Well, whats that?
For the kind of work I do, Im working with plants, with things like first leaf when the
leaves first start to come out of the plants and flower blooms like were around right now.
Its really strange, for some reason this one didnt have any blooms this year.
Were just here in my backyard. This is my local lab I guess you could say.
Obviously this spring, seeing something thats quite unusual, is fascinating. The leaf buds
on the lilacs came out on March 14 and that was a full week earlier than Ive ever recorded
in the 20 years Ive lived here. Ive used the word extraordinary in talking with a lot of
people and certainly, its prompted a lot of attention.
What is important about it, I suppose, is that things are in fact changing. Were not
seeing a random pattern anymore. You have people talking about fractions of a degree
change for a century and Ive been able to look at things and say the beginning of the
growing season is getting about a day earlier per decade.
This doesnt mean that every spring is going to be this early, but its something that perhaps
will shake people a little bit in their complacency the people who would say that things arent
changing and this is all some sort of fiction, this shakes that up a little bit.
What Mark is doing is so creative because hes applying modern science to this very ancient
set of observations. Were at the UWM Field Station. This equipment right here is just
some of the meteorological equipment that we keep for Mark. Theres just a dizzying number
of factors that could influence when plants leaf out, when they flower. But, Mark has
taken that to the space age by using satellite imagery to watch the progression of the green-up
in spring. So hes making a phenological observation on the whole planet essentially.
Ive been at the University of WisconsinMilwaukee since 1992. Theres been a definite transformation;
the whole attitude has changed. What was exciting I guess was the challenge, the challenge of
coming to a place that was aspiring to be more than what it was and being connected
to that and hoping to contribute to that.
What Im hoping is that we can use this a way to help people become more connected with
whats going on in the environment. Its something that individuals can go out into their yard,
they can look at the plants themselves and see the changes. So the hope is, as Ive told
some people, that phenology becomes something that people dont say, Well, what is that?
They start to think about it and know what it is and know what its about as time goes
on.
I really am into this from my heart.