Understanding Climate Change, With Help From Thoreau
Tributes left at the grave of Henry David Thoreau by Muffet
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
License (according to Flickr): Attribution License
Researchers in Massachusetts and Wisconsin are comparing modern flower blooming data with notes made by Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. They're seeing many plants, including irises in the Boston area, blooming consistently earlier than in the writers' times. Modern scientists trying to understand climate change are engaged in an unlikely collaboration — with two beloved but long-dead nature writers: Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. The authors of Walden and A Sand County Almanac and last spring's bizarrely warm weather have helped today's scientists understand that the first flowers of spring can continue to bloom earlier, as temperatures rise to unprecedented levels.
People:
Henry David Thoreau
Overall Sentiment: 0.0606067
Relevance: 0.921646
| Sentiment | Quote |
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| -0.110104 | "I often visited a particular plant four of five miles distant, half a dozen times within a fortnight that I might know exactly when it opened," Thoreau wrote ... |
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Aldo Leopold
Overall Sentiment: 0.0200899
Relevance: 0.894789
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Primack
Overall Sentiment: 0.066952
Relevance: 0.519517
| Sentiment | Quote |
|---|---|
| 0.125568 | "If you take the old historical records of Thoreau and Aldo Leopold and use those to sort predict when plants will be flowering in an astonishingly warm year like we had in 2012, the flowering time of plants is exactly what you would predict using this historical data," says Boston University Biology Professor Richard Primack. |
| 0 | "So what Thoreau would do is he would go out for walks almost every day for about four hours and he would record in the spring when he saw the first open flower of a particular species," Primack says. |
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Stanley Temple
Overall Sentiment: -0.0254614
Relevance: 0.498576
| Sentiment | Quote |
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| -0.0697468 | "Nina lived to be 93 years old, and was out walking the land observing things up until just a few weeks before she died," says Temple. |
| 0.020601 | "It was when we realized, 'Wow, 2012 is going to be a record setter,' we decided to ask the question: Could we have predicted the flowering date given what was known about the temperature? And indeed we could have," says Temple, ... |
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Nina Leopold Bradley
Overall Sentiment: -0.145337
Relevance: 0.448296
bush
Overall Sentiment: 0.334884
Relevance: 0.326677
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Terry Root
Overall Sentiment: 0.0911458
Relevance: 0.294061
| Sentiment | Quote |
|---|---|
| -0.0760581 | "Is that good news or bad news? The answer to that is yes," Root says. ... |
| 0.0631888 | Root says that since the unusually high temperatures last spring could become the new normal, "this is kind of a peek into the future." |
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Richard Primack
Overall Sentiment: 0.433412
Relevance: 0.279121
| Sentiment | Quote |
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| -0.0227274 | "So this was a plant species which has shifted its flowering time by five or six weeks since the time of Thoreau. So this is really quite unbelievable," Primack says. ... |
| 0 | "So what Thoreau would do is he would go out for walks almost every day for about four hours and he would record in the spring when he saw the first open flower of a particular species," Primack says. |
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Nina
Overall Sentiment: -0.139679
Relevance: 0.257905
Disambiguation: References:
Charles Davis
Overall Sentiment: 0.0910507
Relevance: 0.218234
| Sentiment | Quote |
|---|---|
| 0.111119 | "In late December 2011 and January 2012, I started seeing irises blooming in the Boston area," says Charles Davis, ... |
| -0.0194277 | "In late December 2011 and January 2012, I started seeing irises blooming in the Boston area," says Charles Davis, a Harvard Professor of evolutionary biology and who collaborates with Primack. "And you know this is the dead of winter, and you can imagine it sort of rocked my world." |
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Additional Info:
Organization: Aldo Leopold Foundation and University of Wisconsin
Overall Sentiment: 0.0703835
Relevance: 0.412862
City: Thoreau
Overall Sentiment: 0.20365
Relevance: 0.721873
City: Boston
Overall Sentiment: 0.154716
Relevance: 0.34068
Disambiguation: AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | PlaceWithNeighborhoodsReferences:
City: Concord
Overall Sentiment: 0.011621
Relevance: 0.327649
StateOrCounty: Wisconsin
Overall Sentiment: 0.0821275
Relevance: 0.508055
Disambiguation: Location | PoliticalDistrict | AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | USStateReferences:
StateOrCounty: Massachusetts
Overall Sentiment: 0.0687406
Relevance: 0.370574
Disambiguation: Location | PoliticalDistrict | AdministrativeDivision | GovernmentalJurisdiction | USStateReferences:
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Some of the most beloved nature writers of all time, Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold, are helping scientists learn how global warming will affect spring by using historical records to predict when flowers will bloom during especially hot years.
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Understanding Climate Change, With Help From Thoreau
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