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Indicator Specification
Phenology is the timing of seasonal events such as budburst, flowering, dormancy, migration and hibernation. Some phenological responses are triggered by mean temperature, while others are more responsive to day length or weather extremes. Changes in phenology affect the growing season and thus ecosystem functioning and productivity. Changes in phenology are impacting farming, forestry, gardening and wildlife. The timing of tilling, sowing and harvesting is changing, fruit is ripening earlier due to warmer summer temperatures, and grass in municipal parks and on road verges requires more frequent cutting over a longer period. Changes in flowering have implications for the timing and intensity of the pollen season and related health effects. The pollen season is advancing as many species start to flower earlier, and the concentration of pollen in the air is increasing. The increasing trend in the yearly amount of airborne pollen for many taxa is more pronounced in urban than semi-natural areas across the continent.
In April 2013 the European Commission presented the EU Adaptation Strategy Package (http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/adaptation/what/documentation_en.htm). This package consists of the EU Strategy on adaptation to climate change /* COM/2013/0216 final */ and a number of supporting documents. One of the objectives of the EU Adaptation Strategy is Better informed decision-making, which should occur through Bridging the knowledge gap and Further developing Climate-ADAPT as the ‘one-stop shop’ for adaptation information in Europe. Further objectives include Promoting action by Member States and Climate-proofing EU action: promoting adaptation in key vulnerable sectors. Many EU Member States have already taken action, such as by adopting national adaptation strategies, and several have also prepared action plans on climate change adaptation.
The European Commission and the European Environment Agency have developed the European Climate Adaptation Platform (Climate-ADAPT, http://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/) to share knowledge on observed and projected climate change and its impacts on environmental and social systems and on human health; on relevant research; on EU, national and subnational adaptation strategies and plans; and on adaptation case studies.
No targets have been specified.
A phenological dataset collected during the COST 725 Action ‘Establishing a European phenological data platform for climatological applications’ was analysed, which contained more than 36000 phenological time series for Europe covering 1971–2000.
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Generally, observations for popular groups such as vascular plants, birds, other terrestrial vertebrates and butterflies are much better than for less conspicuous and less popular species. Similarly, due to extensive existing networks, a long tradition and better means of detection and rapid responses of the organisms to changes, knowledge on phenological changes are better observed and recorded than range shifts. Projections of climate change impacts on phenology rely crucially on the understanding of current processes and responses. For most cases, only a few years of data are available and do not cover the entire area of the EU but are restricted to certain well monitored countries with a long tradition in the involvement of citizen scientists. Based on these short time series, the determination of impacts and their interpretation thus has to rely on assumptions, and achieving a qualitative understanding of species’ responses is more robust than their quantification. One of the greatest unknowns is how quickly and closely species will alter their phenology in accordance to a changing climatic regime. Even experimental studies seem to be of little help, since they notoriously tend to underestimate the effects of climate change on changes in phenology.
Further information on uncertainties is provided in Section 1.7 of the EEA report on Climate change, impacts, and vulnerability in Europe 2012 (http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/climate-impacts-and-vulnerability-2012/)
No uncertainty has been specified
Work specified here requires to be completed within 1 year from now.
Work specified here will require more than 1 year (from now) to be completed.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/plant-phenology-1 or scan the QR code.
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