Ok I live in Michigan and it's November. There's no snow and leaves are still falling of trees. How is this happining? We live on a hill and on Black Friday or Thanksgiving a few years ago my mom slid off the side of our driveway!
(My mom was ok after she slid off our driveway. A root stoped her. No damage was done to the car and it was eventually towed out. When the tow truck was pulling her out, he was even sliding!)
Meet Global Warming.....
I live in Lousisana....we have a severe drought with no rain in sight......apparently....this Winter will be much warmer and drier than usual, too.....
The relative quantity of sunlight is principal in determining the start of a biochemical processes that cause deciduous trees to shed their leaves. Ambient temperature decreases also affect this process, but to a lesser extent. A sudden freeze will slow or totally stop the leaf-shedding process, because the cold temperatures will slow the chemistry or destroy the altered cells that cause this process. In extreme cases, the leaves will remain on the tree until springtime, when new growth pushes the old, dead leaves off the tree. A significant percentage of leaves are often naturally shed every year in the spring, anyway.
Casual observations often hide and confuse the causes and effects in nature. Incidental and coincidental events are often thought to be the cause, when they are neither the cause nor the effect. Consider animals that grow a “winter coat.” It is often thought the lower temperatures of fall cause this because this helps keep the animal warm in the winter. While that does keep the animal warmer, it is a reduction in sunlight, not temperature changes, that triggers the biological mechanism. As daylight time diminishes, many animals will start to grow thicker coats, and some will grow lighter-colored coats that eventually become completely white. This process “reverses” as the days become longer.
Several biochemical changes occur in the brain with seasonal sunlight reduction –the most notable being the reduction of serotonin. A reduction in serotonin initiates behavior changes and produces an undercoat of hair or fur in many mammals. If your pet dog or cat is growing a “winter coat” out of season, then this may indicate a reduction of serotonin caused by aberrant brain chemistry. A prescription for an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) by a veterinarian will usually correct the off-season winter coat and related behavior changes.
It’s important to note these processes, leaf fall and winter coats, actually starts in the summertime. After the first day of summer, the days begin to shorten, and this starts the process. Seasonal daylight changes are very consistent, unlike weather patterns, which change from year to year, and can trend in a warming direction for decades before reversing and trending toward the colder temperatures. This has always been the case, despite the doomsayers of anthropomorphic global warming. The evolutionary processes that establishing these processes are much more biased toward stable daylight ratios than temperature changes.
GA
OK Gingerale who are you really? How and why do you write an advanced, four-paragraph extemporaneous monograph on a simple comment and question that most wouldn’t take seriously?
Also, why do you say there is no global warming? Id like to know what you have to say.
Who am I?
I’m a genetically enhanced, banana-loving chimp. (That was easy.)
For “how and why,” I’ll answer as “why and how.”
A student asked a curious question and I answered with a summary of facts and educated opinion. This is hardly a monograph. The only reason it might seem advanced to you is that it is not anthropomorphized. It is a light, scientific commentary referencing well know facts of biology and nature, simplified to a junior high or early high school level.
For your third question, I reread my post twice; I didn’t say there was “no global warming.” Academically, I’ve debated both sides of this issue. I do have an opinion that is moderately biased, but couched in the scientific method with troll-chimp overtones, more than in any political or social policy. After ten years of academic and conversational debate, I’m rather tired of it. However, I might give a brief commentary if you say “Pretty please, with sugar on top.” I really don’t want to invest the time if you are just someone writing, “Killroy was here!” on a post.
GA
I am interested for sure. Both my regular science (earth science) and political classes have discussions on this subject. My science professor is doubtful, but my political professor is adamant that global warming is here now. Most of my classmates in both classes think it happening now. I do to and always have, though after listening to my earth science professor Im not so sure anymore.
I didn’t really expect you to reply to my post at all. I shouldn’t have wrote it so rudely. Sorry.