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Phenology

Spring greening in a warming world

Nature volume 526, pages 48–49 (2015)Cite this article

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Warmer temperatures have been associated with an earlier emergence of spring leaves each year. New data, however, suggest that leaf emergence is becoming less sensitive to temperature as global temperatures rise. See Letter p.104

For centuries, people have been fascinated by the timing of the arrival of spring, a season named for the 'springing forth' of the leaves of deciduous trees. It has long been known that spring leaf emergence is strongly linked to temperature1,2 — even in ancient Rome, Pliny the Elder realized that leaf emergence was a much better indicator of weather than were the constellations3. Leaves have emerged earlier over the past century, as spring has become warmer. With global anthropogenic emissions currently exceeding previous worst-case scenarios4, considerable warming is expected in the coming decades. Will future warming lead to even earlier and greener springs? In this issue, Fu et al.5 (page 104) report results suggesting that the relationship between the seasonal timing of leaf emergence — spring phenology —and temperature is changing.

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Figure 1: Green and early.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Trevor F. Keenan is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia.,

    Trevor F. Keenan

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  1. Trevor F. Keenan
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Correspondence to Trevor F. Keenan.

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Keenan, T. Spring greening in a warming world. Nature 526, 48–49 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature15633

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