Changing Seasons

[Tursiops2]

I took this photo of a field on my regular patch, in April:



Two weeks later, after a month without rain, and it's turning into a desert:



In five years of regular visits I've never seen it this bad, even in late summer, and it's still only May!

Is this what we can expect from the 21st Century?

T2

[matt_xyz]

your part of the country does seem to be suffering from a lack of rain more than other areas. I was in Suffolk a couple of weeks ago and noticed how cracked the fields were, more so than in Leicestershire where I'm based (although we don't seem to be too far behind). I assume things have got even worse in Suffolk during the last couple of weeks.

I suspect this is the shape of things to come.

Matt

[Hornbeam]

It's very bad in Essex too. The fields are dry with gaping cracks, but the early drought doesn't seem to bother the endless oilseed rape. I am much more concerned with the forest floors - they are bone dry and as hard as concrete. Woodland flowers have keeled over and are quite limp. Streams, ditches and smaller rivers have no water at all and the vegetation alongside is yellow and dry. The local landscape looks like it did in August of the hot summer of 2003 - yet now, in 2007, we have the same conditions in April and May

[Garden Carpet]

I have noticed a lot of cracked ground in my part of Lincs... I dont recall seeing lawns with huge cracks in them ever before
jaki

[nightshade]

It is the same story here,I am putting waste water on shady parts of the
garden and lawn so the birds can find worms and grubs for their young

[svenrufus]

Last year, for a while, every single park and lawn I passed in the South of England - with the notable exception of those that were clearly being watered against the letter and priniple of the hosepipe ban - were bone dry and brown for the large part of the spring and summer. When the rains came later in the year it was astonishing how quickly the land greened up again, but you do have to worry about which species are going to be more resilient to this sort of new climate, and how our wildflower grasslands will be affected over time in terms of species mix.

Trees too. Look at your street trees - for a few years now the trees round here in Brighton - home of the National Elm Collection as we have been spared Dutch Elm since the 70's -are beginning to die back at an alarming rate, earlier and earlier every year. So far this year I have seen around a dozen elms struggling to get going at all. I hope to God that this is not the sign of cumulative stress of years with low water finally giving the coup de grace. But I fear it may be so.

What about the wee beasties that were living on your patch? When all the foliage diappears, what happens to the rest of the ecosystem? Plants can recover in good years from seed or rootstock - but animals with an annual lifecycle can be wiped out of an area by one bad year - and we have had several. I think this is a great research topic for someone to look at, but would make utterly depressing reading.

[JoanB]

Yes, was it only six weeks ago that all the fields in the south Midlands were at least waterlogged and many flooded? I see that many farmers are now laying sheets of plastic between their crop plants - an artificial mulch .... but how much will the manufacture of this plastic contribute to climate warming? Is the pastic recyclable? Are there not natural mulches that could be used?

[Susie]

I guess all our native species will move northwards, and we will get more immigrants from the continent in both flora and fauna.

The first photo in this thread reminds me a bit of Cyprus where they have beautiful meadows of spring flowers for a very short time before it becomes dry and parched for the rest of the season.

[Hornbeam]

Yes -I agree with you Susie

[svenrufus]

Originally Posted by Susie

I guess all our native species will move northwards, and we will get more immigrants from the continent in both flora and fauna.

The first photo in this thread reminds me a bit of Cyprus where they have beautiful meadows of spring flowers for a very short time before it becomes dry and parched for the rest of the season.

It's not that simple. Sure it will work that way for many species, but many other species are very poor at moving between sites, and in our modern landscape where wildlife sites are so isolated from each other, these latter ones will not be able to make the leap to the next suitable habitat. Thus as their climate zone moves north, they will get left behind and die out.

And where do the Scottish species go?