Re: Irregular blooming: What is normal?

Paul Harrar wrote:
> 
> When people start talking about irregularities in climate and plant
> growth, I have to wonder why people think nature is so predictable and
> why we think it's surprising or unusual for a bloom to be early or late.
> What is normal, exactly? Is there such thing in nature? Sure there is
> some order to things, but in general, nature is beautiful chaos. Just
> because the sun, earth and moon are locked into fairly stable cycles of
> motion, doesn't mean the climate and all the life forms on earth act as
> predictably. 

You are quite right Paul to question what is in fact "normal". During
our 45 years in this country we have kept some track of the weather and
seen it go from warm to cool summers and from summers with almost no
rain to some when rain never seemed to stop. Some decades have been
notoceably warmer than the average and a balancing number distinctly
cooler.

Among the variables you mentioned is of course the output of energy from
the sun, which for instance alters from year to year in the sunspot
cycle. This obviously, along with a host of other factors, has both
short and long term effects on climate. 

I would hesitate though to view the situation as  chaotic, but there are
so may interlocking systems, each with its own agenda, that to the
ordinary observer it can certainly look as thought there was simply
chaos rather than an extreme elaboration of action and reaction -
marvellous stuff indeeed.

Moira

-- 
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata, New Zealand. (on the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
Lat. 41:16S Long. 174:58E. Climate: Mediterranean/Temperate
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