Have you noticed less brilliance in the colors this Fall? Do the leaves appear dull and not quite as beautiful as previous years. You can blame that on climate change and the leaves in the Northeast have been especially hard hit reports the Associated Press.
Every fall, Marilyn Krom tries to make a trip to Vermont to see its famously beautiful fall foliage. This year, she noticed something different about the autumn leaves.
"They're duller, not as sparkly, if you know what I mean," Krom, 62, a registered nurse from Eastford, Conn., said during a recent visit. "They're less vivid."
Other "leaf peepers" are noticing, too, and some believe climate change could be the reason.
Forested hillsides usually riotous with reds, oranges and yellows have shown their colors only grudgingly in recent years, with many trees going straight from the dull green of late summer to the rust-brown of late fall with barely a stop at a brighter hue.
"It's nothing like it used to be," said University of Vermont plant biologist Tom Vogelmann, a Vermont native.
He says autumn has become too warm to elicit New England's richest colors.
With winters only expected to get warmer in the future it looks like fall folliage is another thing that will change thanks to global warming. Beautiful fall scenes like the one on the right will become less common. One forestry professor told the AP that the leaves will skip color changes and go straight from green to brown. Not fun for leaf peepers. You can find some fall foliage resources here on our previous post about fall leaves.
Have you noticed less brilliance in the colors this Fall? Do the leaves appear dull and not quite as beautiful as previous years. You can blame that on climate change and the leaves in the Northeast have been especially hard hit 