My Changing Climate

LAST FALL I noticed, once again, that the leaves on my trees remained green longer into the autumn than ever, that they turned colors and fell from said trees later in the season than ever, something approaching Thanksgiving. I can remember when the trees in my area were brightly colored in fall colors of red, yellow, and orange by October first, every year. Fondly I remember a long cross country run I took with a friend through the woods on October 1, 1996, in which we were surrounded by trees bursting with brilliant fall colors at their peak, which was not abnormal. No more. Over the last ten or fifteen years, in my area, October has become, basically, a summer month, with daily temperatures usually above eighty, often eighty five, through Halloween...Several days ago, I walked outside and noticed, to my shock, that no fewer than two of my maple trees are budding out, the tiny leaves are starting to bloom, that all the other trees in my yard, more than twenty, are developing large buds, many of them which they actually developed late last fall, and kept all winter. The entire winter, I have been surprised at the buds on the trees, as if the trees want to grow leaves, soon.....Not only that, but the Iris patch by the fence, the green stalks are already out of the ground, about an inch tall, and poised to grow fast and large over the next couple of weeks. Also, unless I'm dreaming, which I am sure I am not, the grass is stargtng to grow, in patches, all over the yard. Clover is coming up out of the leaf covered ground. All this, the first week of February. In short, I am shocked, amazed, and, I confess, a bit horrified. Now I am starting to think about next summer, the imminent summer of twenty twenty four, and the inevitable drought. There will of course be at least one drought, and maybe two, maybe more. Last year we had one brief rainy period. sqeezed in between two severe droughts. Then too, how many days next summer will the temperature reach one hundred degrees? That happens more often every year, it seems. Indeed, every year is hotter than the previous, every year sets new records for heat. There is no reason to expect that will change in the future. Thus, our apparent future in which every year is hotter than the previous. Every year, the hottest on record. When will it eventuate that there is no winter at all in my area, that winter as a sason vanishes, replaced by perpetual summer? What I am thinking and talking about, what I am living, is climate change, human made, happening here and now, and getting worse, fast. The thought becomes frightening. I live in an area of rolling hills, a lot of streams, rivers, and lakes, and dense deciduous forests. Our annuaal rainfall has always been about forty five inches. We seem to get less rain every year. I can easily envision a future in which the forests have disappeared in my region, and have been replaced by prairie grassland. As I cruise down rural highways and roads around where I live, I see more and more trees which to me look unhealthy, scrawny, stooped, as if not getting enough annual nutrition. In large parts of the United States last summer, there were heat waves in which the daily temperature exceeded one hundred degrees for days on end, even weeks. That happened at my house. It seems almsot inevitable that it will happen every year, everywhere, in the near future. Our massive wildfires of the future will most likely break out all over the country and will burn thousands, millions of acres of forest all the way to the east coast. California is now enduring alternating severe droughts and massive, destructive flooding. That too appears something we can expect more of; extreme weather, extreme climate.