Faculty Research Fellow Richard Primack Authors Article on Impact of Climate Change on Arrival of Spring

Richard Primack, a professor of biology and a Faculty Research Fellow at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently co-authored an article titled “Spring Budburst in a Changing Climate” in American Scientist.  

In the article, Prof. Primack explains his 15-year effort to use Henry David Thoreau’s unpublished 1850s field notes to compare the arrival of springtime in New England as an indicator of accelerating climate change. His research team has found that, over the past 160 years, the average leaf emergence date of 43 woody plant species that Thoreau observed has shifted from May 8 to April 20.

“Understanding how leaf-out and leaf-drop times are changing is important for anticipating and preparing for the effects of climate change on forestry, agriculture, gardening, tourism, ecology, and climate,” writes Prof. Primack.

Click here to read the full article.

As a Pardee Center Faculty Research Fellow, Prof. Primack is leading a three-year project known as Leaf Emergence and Fall (LEaF), which aims to bring together a wide range of researchers from universities in eastern Massachusetts to collaborate on the impact of climate change on tree phenology.