An employee of the Phobos center named the main disadvantages of a warm autumn

An employee of the Phobos center named the main disadvantages of a warm autumn

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This year, the heavenly office is a little out of sorts – autumn has forgotten that it should bring cold with it, and decided to pamper the residents of some regions of Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, with warmth. MK found out what impact abnormal autumn heat has on nature. And if for people such autumn is like a balm for the soul, then nature is not happy.

September has become fantastically warm in the entire history of meteorological observations, and the first days of November never tire of breaking thermal records. The night of November 7 in Moscow became the warmest during the period of meteorological observations; the air temperature did not drop below plus 9.2 degrees, breaking the 1954 record.

“The beginning of November really turned out to be abnormally warm for us,” weather forecaster and leading employee of the Phobos weather center Mikhail Leus told MK. — We record dozens of records, day and night. This applies to the European part of Russia and the Urals. For example, in Moscow today the average temperature since the beginning of November is 6 degrees higher than normal. That’s a lot. In Krasnodar – by 7 degrees. In St. Petersburg – by two, and in Yekaterinburg – by a degree. In Western Siberia and the north of the Far East the picture is different. In Novosibirsk it is two degrees colder than normal, and in Yakutsk it is also a little over two degrees cooler than it should be.

According to Leus, in most of its manifestations, abnormal heat is harmful to animals and plants. The biological cycle is disrupted.

“When such a sharp warming occurs, these animals either wake up, or the process of transition to hibernation is postponed until later,” says the weather forecaster. — Energy in the body is spent during this time, and there is nowhere to gain it: if we talk about bears, then they have nowhere to fatten up, there is not much food. And then not all animals can come out of such hibernation.

As biologists add, a connecting rod bear that has not hibernated is not only dangerous to people, but such animals, as a rule, do not survive until spring, since their body is not adapted to the conditions of winter cold and limited access to food.

For plants, a failure of the “biological clock” is also harmful. This fall, social networks are filled with photos of plants blooming for the second time in a year, ranging from lilacs to almost dozens of “revived” plants in the Botanical Garden. The primroses, which had already bloomed once in the spring, have now burst out of the ground again. The picture may please the eyes of the townspeople, but there is little good in it. Biologists explain that after abundant flowering in the fall, the plant may die next year. If the buds were on separate shoots, then it is these branches that dry out. Very often, after autumn flowering, a good harvest does not form on fruit-bearing trees the next season. In addition, during flowering in the fall, the plant consumes reserves of nutrients, which during this period should be used for other purposes – creating a safety margin, accumulating substances that promote tissue stability. As a result, trees and shrubs weaken and even die.

“Migratory birds lose their schedule,” continues Leus. “They rely on the weather, and the lingering warmth tells them that it’s too early to fly away. And then suddenly there will be a sharp cold snap and snow will fall, and somewhere along the way it will catch up with them and can destroy them. Often such warmth ends in a sharp cold snap, which is accompanied by snowfalls and frosts. And it’s even worse when frosts come to snowless ground: without a snow “blanket,” the roots of plants freeze.

But ornithologist Dmitry Matyunin called “MK” the advantages of a warm autumn for birds: “Foraging remains easier for a longer time, since the ground and plants are not covered with snow. The absence of frost is always easier to tolerate, especially for small birds. In recent years, probably due to warming, bird species that were not previously present in the Central Federal District have begun to appear.

“If weather anomalies are episodic in nature, then there will be no serious consequences for nature,” Anton Khlynov, an ecologist and expert at the public council of Rosleskhoz, shared his opinion with MK. – But on the other hand, we are still observing a trend of increasing climate extremes, that is, we are seeing more such anomalies than before, not only temperature, but also others, for example, floods, heavy rains, hurricanes in areas for which they were previously uncharacteristic. There can be quite a few reasons.

Such anomalies primarily harm weather-sensitive people. Atmospheric pressure changes, for some an increase is critical, for others a decrease is critical. These days there is a magnetic storm, the peak of which occurred on November 5, and, as you know, weather-sensitive people feel worse during magnetic storms. And yet, I believe that nature has given us a gift: it gives us a little more warmth so that we can take it with us into the winter. Therefore, we need to pay attention to this and take advantage of these days. Thank the sun. Absorb its strength so that you can take its warmth with you into your soul until spring.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29152 dated November 8, 2023

Newspaper headline:
Harmful warm autumn

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