Spring's Discordant Orchestra

Spring is here. One of the great sounds of spring in the Seattle area is the “yap-yap-yap” call of the northern flickers, which carries for hundreds of yards in all directions.

I heard my first yap-yap-yap flicker call in early February. Odd, I thought to myself. That’s the earliest I can remember hearing that.

I’m not that well versed in birds, so maybe the February flicker call doesn’t amount to much. But what does amount to much is the gathering evidence that spring is arriving earlier as a result of climate change.

In its 2007 reports, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicated with “very high confidence” that warming has led to earlier leaf budding, bird migration, and egg-laying. Lilacs are blooming earlier in the Northeast. Sycamores are leafing out earlier in the U.K. Robins are arriving ahead of schedule in the central Rockies.

An earlier spring is great if you’re tired of winter’s cold and darkness, and appreciate the dash of color provided by spring flowers. But for wildlife that depend on seasonal cues for feeding, it’s not great. Critters that fall out of sync with the cycles of insects or plants that they feed upon will have to find new sources of food or starve.

Seasonal timing is one of the great connecting threads that keep ecosystems in good working order. Disrupted timing snips the thread and weakens the system.

Imagine an orchestra performing Beethoven’s Ninth. If the conductor cues the chorus at the wrong moment in the symphony, even the most tone-deaf listeners will know that something is amiss.

Think of an ecosystem as a symphony orchestra and climate as the conductor. The conductor is suffering a fever and is goofing up the performance.

What does it matter to people if plant and animal cycles are out of whack? Maybe a lot. One example is that food crops and other plants blooming earlier are more vulnerable to late-season frosts. Another is earlier emergence of allergenic pollens.

More broadly, our climate carelessness is tampering with one of the delicate levers that govern ecosystems. Ecosystems are an endowment and the vital ecological services that they deliver are the dividends on which we live. We tamper with that endowment at our peril.