Re: ARE WE THERE?
> "helene.pizzi" wrote:
>
> This is a strange winter. We have just returned from our cold climate
> garden covered in white after a very un-Mediterranean record breaking
> December cold and snow in Milwaukee.
>
> Plants are acting odd here in Rome this winter...
Hi Helene
A lot of what you describe must evidently be due to unusually high
temperatures. I myself have always thought a lot of seasonal cues for
flowering and so on were mainly due changes in light levels with the
changing year, but perhaps temperature is a bigger component than I was
aware of.
> - For the 3rd year running we have had completely albino Acanthus
> mollis seedlings double-dotting the ground with pure white leaves (no
> stripes or varigated leaflets, but candid white ones) until they run
> out of nourishment.
I wonder if you have had some noticeable increase in UV radiation which
could possibly account for this? We definitely have here, due to
proximity to the southern ozone hole. Apart from increasing melanomas
among the humans there has been some some suggestion of plant damage,
both simple burning and possible genetic alteration. What ever is
responsible, your particular Acanthus plants have evidently been
affected by something which has caused a deleterious mutation affecting
their germ cells. I wonder if this has happened also in neighbouring
gardens.
>
> Have our natural cycles been altered? Are we really feeling the
> effects of the increase of carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses
> in our polluted atmosphere?
Maybe, but looking at the history of our planet's climate it could
equally be a relatively minor _natural_ climatic fluctuation, such as
has happened regularly in the past. Some of the ones in historical times
are well documented such as the "Little Iceage" which started in the
13th Century and. for instance, made it impossible for several
centuries to grow grapes in Britain, which there had previously been
quite extensive vinyards. I am not saying the pollution is having no
effect, rather that so far it is likely not strong enough to override
the occasional natural alterations in the world's weather patterns,
though it could no doubt have some influence on the severity of those
changes.
"So far" of course is the operative pharase, and we have absolutely no
justification to fall into complacency.
Mind you, I suppose that locally the amount of pollution regularly
present in the atmosphere of Europe in recent years might be enough to
have a blanketing effect on the land and so increase local winter temps
a trifle.
The whole thing about really major changes (ice ages for instance) is
that in the absence of one-off catastrophic events (a major asteroid hit
or a really huge bout of vulcanism) they mostly occur on such a vast
timescale that what happens in a human lifetime will likely be eqivalent
to no more than the tiniest ripple in an Amazon-sized river.
Enjoy your milder Roman winters while you can, I should say.
Moira
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
