OSLO — Early flowers, migrating swallows and sleepless bears
are among signs that spring has arrived long ago in the northern hemisphere even
as a record mild winter formally ends on Tuesday with a rare chill.
Spring officially starts on Wednesday at 0007 GMT when the
sun passes north over the celestial equator but scientists say the biological
clocks of animals and plants are running ahead of time, perhaps upset by global
warming.
Orange trees, olives and peaches are blooming weeks ahead of
schedule in Greece, geese are cutting down on migrations in Canada and the
United States and bears have been unable to hibernate in Bulgaria.
Red Admiral butterflies and swallows — usually a sign of
summer after the birds spend the winter in Africa — have been spotted early in
the Netherlands after the warmest Dutch autumn and winter since records starting
in 1706.
"Springs have been getting earlier for the past 60 years.
Plants have been getting incredibly confused, and birds have also been confused
to some extent," said Andre Farrar of Britain’s Royal Society for the Protection
of Birds.
Winter in the northern hemisphere was the warmest since
global records began in the late 19th century, spurred by a warming trend of
recent decades and an El Nino warming of the Pacific, according to the U.S.
government’s weather agency.
And some experts predict that 2007 could eclipse 1998 and
2005 as the warmest on record.
Scientists say that weather is always chaotic but U.N.
reports project that extreme events such as droughts, heat waves and floods are
likely to become more frequent because of a warming widely blamed on use of
fossil fuels.
In a parting blast of winter, snow or sleet fell in parts of
Europe from Britain to Slovenia on Tuesday.
All 20 bears in a Bulgarian conservation park are awake after
most skipped a hibernation normally lasting until April.
"The bears did not even try to sleep this winter. For the
first time it happened to almost all of them," said Anton Paunkov, spokesman of
the "Four Paws" foundation.
And the winter migration path of Canadian geese has become
shorter in the last 25 years, apparently because of warmer temperatures and
changing U.S. farm practices.
"Where we used to get banded geese turning up in Florida and
Louisiana, now they’re not making it much farther south than Ohio," said Kirk
Miner of the Jack Miner Bird Sanctuary near Windsor, Ontario.
In Kew Gardens west of London, daffodils, crocuses and
snowdrops have been opening early. In Britain, some birds such as chiffchaffs
and blackcaps no longer bother to migrate.
Some farmers may benefit from longer growing seasons but many
worry that early flowering exposes crops to late frosts or pests. Normal insect
pollinators such as bees may not be around when the flowers bloom.
In Italy, a "Map of Spring" study warned that many plants
were flowering 10 to 20 days earlier than normal, possibly because of global
warming. Prime Minister Romano Prodi has warned farmers to prepare for drought
after a warm, dry winter.
Meteo France said average temperatures from December to
February were 2.1 degrees Celsius (3.8 Fahrenheit) above average — the highest
since it began collating "full and reliable" data from 22 French cities in 1950.
Among benefits, high winter temperatures may have helped keep
winter heating bills down, helping limit high oil prices at about $60 a barrel.
Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana had about 10 centimeters (4
inches) of snow on Monday, the most of the winter, causing railway and road
traffic problems throughout the country. Ski resort operators were delighted
after a soggy season.
Among other swings, temperatures in Beijing were set to climb
from a chilly 7C on Tuesday to 18C on Saturday.
One man in Cyprus got twin shocks from an early spring.
Picking wild asparagus in late February, he got bitten by a snake that had
apparently woken early from hibernation. Then, driving to hospital for
treatment, he got stopped for speeding.
