Climate Change May Alter Ecological Impacts of the Seasons, Especially Near Poles

Climate change could alter the ecological impacts of the seasons, which could mean some big changes when it comes to our environment and agriculture. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at temperature variability across the globe in order to find out a bit more about potential impacts.

"We describe, for the first time, changes in temperature variability across the globe," said George Wang, one of the researchers, in a news release. "We've had a long discussion about changes in the mean temperature. It has been ongoing for over 30 years. It's very clear mean temperatures have shifted across the globe. It's less clear if the variation in temperature has changed."

The variability in temperature could potentially mean that certain insects survive for longer in non-tropical regions. This could lead to increased crop damage from pest insects, or even an increased spread of disease, such as malaria transmitted by mosquitoes. In addition, plants in temperature regions that are adapted to use temperature to tell season could be drastically impacted. Growing seasons could change as plants are "confused" and produce flowers and fruits at different times.

In order to estimate global variation in the mean temperature and in temperature cycling, the scientists analyzed more than one billion temperature measurements from 7,906 weather stations that sampled from 1926 to 2009. By analyzing monthly and yearly averages of daily temperature extremes, the researchers found that daily and annual minimum and maximum temperatures have increased across the world since 1950.

The changes in temperature have been most dramatic for places closest to the poles and far from oceans.

"In these places, warmer winters-decreasing the difference between summer and winter-and hotter days-increasing the difference between day and night-mean that the range of temperatures, which organisms experience over a few days, is closer to the range of temperatures they experience over an entire year," said Wang. "These patterns are strongest in Canada and Russia, but occur even in Germany."

The findings reveal that no place is safe from climate change. Even places far from the oceans will have massive changes in seasonal temperature variability, partly because they're far away from the buffering effects of the ocean. This, in turn, shows that steps need to be taken in order to mitigate these effects.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Climate Change.