Citizen Scientists Track Climate Change

  • Reporter Sadie Babits is tracking the blooming of a lilac tree, as part of a "citizen scientist" project that will document climate change. (Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

Transcript

Scientists are asking citizens to pay attention to plants this spring. They want you to report everything from leaf buds to blossoms. Scientists want those observations from right in your backyard to better understand how climate change is affecting plants and trees. Sadie Babits liked the idea and signed up:

You know, I found it really isn’t hard to be a citizen scientist.

I’m on the website for Project Budburst. It’s a nationwide effort to get people out into their backyards to track spring flowers. All I have to do is to pick a plant or tree to keep an eye on and then report my findings.

I’m thinking I’ll check out the lilac trees in my neighborhood here in Portland. But before I head out, I need some advice.

So I called Sandra Henderson. She’s busy these days directing Project Budburst at the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research.

“Hey Sadie.”

I reach Henderson at her office in Boulder, Colorado.

What advice do you have for me, a first citizen scientists observing phenology?

“The ideal thing to do is get a sense of when lilacs in your case in Portland, Oregon are expected to have different pheno events.”

Good thing I looked up phenology before calling Henderson. Basically it means nature’s calendar – the timing of when cherry blossoms bloom or a robin builds a nest.

And these life cycles of plants and animals are sensitive to changes in climate.

“Plants provide a wonderful context for understanding changes to the environment and they certainly respond to changes in temperature and precipitation, things that climate scientists are very interested in.”

Scientists can’t be in everyone’s backyard. That’s where volunteers come in. Last year some five thousand people across the country reported their observations to Project Budburst. That information now is the foundation for an online database that includes everything from dandelions to ponderosa pines.

So after walking through our neighborhood and seeing a lot of trees that have already flowered, I’ve decided that these lilac trees outside of our house are perfect for watching because they haven’t flowered yet and there are leaf buds all over the branches. And here’s a branch and the leaf buds are huge and they are just starting to unfurl.

Now that I’ve found my lilac tree to watch, I can report today’s findings.

Really that’s it. Scientists are finding out a lot of interesting things. For example, forsythia in Chicago are blooming a week earlier. These simple observations will eventually create a snapshot of how climate change is affecting plants across the U.S.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sadie Babits.

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