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Image: USDA
The interactive USDA Plant Hardiness Map allows users to view the plants most likely to thrive in any U.S. region. Image by United States Department of Agriculture.
Chihuahuan desert plants like autumn sage, hummingbird mints, and desert willow trees thrive in the gardens that David Salman, president of Santa Fe Greenhouses, oversees.
This wouldn't be unusual...in the Chihuahuan desert. But Salman's display gardens are hundreds of miles north of the desert in Santa Fe. Thirty years ago, these plants wouldn't have survived that city's high elevation and chilly winters.
And that's not the only change in New Mexico. Santa Fe has seen better fruit and vegetable gardens over the last 10 growing seasons, and fruits like cantaloupes, which barely stood a chance before, now grow.
"Thirty years ago, trying to grow a cantaloupe was a complete waste of time," said Salman, who is president of Santa Fe Greenhouses. "We're not finding that to be the case now."
Two thousand miles east, in the New York Botanical Garden, horticulturists have also been experimenting. Their Ladies' Border plot, a south-facing, well-protected garden filled with decorative plants, was replanted ten years ago with plants that weren't normally associated with New York, like crape myrtles and camellias. Those plants are thriving now.
Travel south to Virginia and you'll find that vintners have been growing merlot grapes, a warmer weather grape that's now the second most popular variety in the state, rather than the chardonnay grapes, more tolerant to colder weather, which they were accustomed to 15 years ago. And the wine-growing regions have expanded all over the state as the season has gotten longer, said Tony Wolf, professor of viticulture at Virginia Tech.
"The warmer winters have opened doors for vintners to try varieties that were once risky," Wolf said.
Nationwide, gardeners have been experimenting with their newly assigned plant hardiness zones, a guide provided by the USDA that maps how well a plant will survive winter temperatures in a certain region.
The map divides regions into different growing zones based on the average lowest temperature. Since the 1960s, growers have used it as a guide for which plants will survive best in a given climate. This is the first update to the map since 1990.
According to the USDA, the new map is more robust. Data from over thirty years of temperature records and satellite mapping gives greater detail to the map. Users can now determine climate differences between zip codes, identifying heat and cool islands within a few miles. Heat islands are areas that absorb and radiate more heat from the sun, such as a dense urban area.
"The 1990 map was state-of-the-art at the time," said Kim Kaplan, chief of special projects for the USDA.
The results show warmer zones creeping farther north compared to the previous map. In states like Nebraska, Ohio, and Texas, the shifts can be seen almost throughout the entire state. Hawaii added a new zone 12 to their map, a warm-weather designation that didn't exist previously. Other areas like Pierre, South Dakota have gotten colder.
Kaplan cautions that the changes don't necessarily indicate a changing climate. Comparing the 1990 map to the 2012 map is apples to oranges, she said. The new map reflects more accurate data that has been ground-validated to eliminate biases, such as misleading weather stations' locations. And as for the change in zone locations, sometimes as little as 0.1 degrees Fahrenheit is enough to push a region into a new zone, she says, as was the case for Cheyenne, Wyoming.
"Some places have gotten warmer and some places have gotten more accurate," she said.
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7 Comments
Add CommentThe article states:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Kaplan cautions that the changes don't necessarily indicate a changing climate... "Some places have gotten warmer and some places have gotten more accurate," she said."
That invalidates the attention grabbing headline: "Plant Movement from Climate Change Revealed in Interactive Map."
No, I'm not a climate change denier - I do prefer accurate headlines. I guess that titles are selected by the editors, not the authors?
"Travel south to Virginia and you'll find that vintners have been growing merlot grapes, a warmer weather grape..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love Merlots. I think I'll make an extra trip around the block before getting home to warm the climate even further. It will even help grow more fruit in Santa Fe.
But I do live close to the coast, so I may have to move sooner. Hhhmmm...
Not necessarily, the USDA's job is to put together the most accurate information they can and publish that. Kim is adding an interpretation to that data that may or may not be the same as what someone else with equal knowledge or greater knowledge in stats or climate might say.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor instance, the difference between the old map and the new map shows an overall warming trend that is nigh impossible to explain away as statistical noise or measurement accuracy. Having a little trouble finding a direct comparison between the 1990 map and the 2012 map, but here is a something close:
http://www.garden.bsewall.com/topics/hardiness/history.html
In a published paper in 1981, three decades ago, James Hansen predicted these events as episodes of global warming. He was censored at NASA by the Bush II administration. He is speaking out now, louder than ever.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2012/03/bush-ii-turned-nasa-into-propaganda.html
Other studies show that this is happening around the globe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://ecocosmology.blogspot.com/2010/06/ents-entities-become-nomadic.html
If the author was reporting the information obtained from her expert sources and PBS Newshour or SA Editorial staff selected the title that conflicts with the content of the report, what statistical/climate experts do you presume selected the conflicting headline?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have little doubt that, generally speaking, temperature data are trending warmer over recent decades. However, I suspect that Kim Kaplan and the USDA staff that compiled all the surveys had specific information about the survey data, such as the Cheyenne, Wyoming example, that led to the cautionary advice. I don't accept the premise that the title was chosen by more informed experts. It does make for an attractive headline, though.
@Poker Player,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrom the article:
" Fungi and other diseases are more prominent in some areas, affecting cold weather trees like Colorado blue spruces in Ohio, Akin said. A bacterial infection that chokes vining grapes has been spreading north and west in Virginia, says Wolf. And the warmer winters have caused insect populations, such as beetles which destroy crops and trees, to swell."
I have a crazy idea. How about reading the article before you comment on it.