Reader David Reich left a comment in response to Kenneth Richard’s post on grape harvests and climate.
I’ve decided to upgrade it as a post below. Both stories show that today’s climate is well within the range of our climate’s natural variability over the past 100 and 1000 years, and that today’s weather events aren’t unusual.
Washington DC Cherry Blossoms, By David Reich
This [Grape Harvest Date Evidence: No Significant Modern Warmth] reminds me of the Washington Post (WaPo) story that ran a story a few days ago about the earlier than normal Washington DC cherry blossoms hitting their “peak day”. It was stated by the National Park Service that the blossoms are now blooming “on average about 5 days earlier than normal” since records have been kept by NPS.
So, I went back and checked the data. Turns out that the data have been kept for 96 years going back to 1921. The average day of hitting “peak” during the decade of the 1920’s was day 93 into the year ‚Äì April 3 in a non-leap year, April 2 in a leap year. The average in this decade so far is………92 days. So, how does the Park Service come up with “about 5 days”?
