Overall, the map generally shows warmer winter low temperatures than the 1990 map. "It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north," AP reports.
An updated map that will likely be familiar to anyone who has planted a packet of seeds was presented last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is the first new version of the Plant Hardiness Zone Map since 1990.
Read the complete story / Find your Plant Hardiness Zone by state & Zip Code
The government is "catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now: The globe is warming and it is greatly influencing plants," Stanford University biology professor Terry Root told the Associated Press.
The map has "greater accuracy and detail" according to a USDA press release, thanks in part to 30-years of temperature data. The map also shows America's climate is changing.
Compared to the 1990 version, zone boundaries in this edition of the map have shifted in many areas. The new map is generally one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States.
5 comments:
Has everyone forgotten how cold it was here last winter? This is a crock! Just a bunch of PHDs with too much time on their hands.
Well so what?
The Earth has been cycling between hot and glaciation for millennia. The good news is that with the general climatic increase in temperature, there will be less water stored in the form of ice which is going to mean higher sea levels - i.e., more water. So there's your upside to warming.
I'll take the word of a PHD and the observations that are in plain sight any day over some uneducated yahoo who knows only how to repeat the twisted and silly denials of political ideologues. Your hot air is only adding to the problem.
The climate change deniers are simply too tied to their mindless "no-regulation" free markets belief system to see the truth.
Much of the corporate energy cabals and Wall Street climate change deniers - in concert with their media brainwashing entities such as Fox News and the pro-deregulation industrial-political Super Pacs - are effectively trying to terrify citizens into believing that climate change is either a lie or something God does in geological cycles.
Fortunately there are more and more corporate executives in the US and global energy and industrial sectors who know that climate change is real.
They, along with educated government leaders (if we keep electing them) and educated activist citizens will create change in the right direction - while still fostering economic growth domestically and around the world.
Let's just hope the earth's livable climate can outlive the people in the world who are too selfish and foolish to admit the truth about how man's ignorance is contributing to what will ultimately be an unmanageble environment for our children - but most likely our grandchildren.
"If you take a risk, you could lose. If you don't take a risk, you are guaranteed to lose."
Since the ice cap melt flows directly into the sea, becoming salt water; how is that any upside?
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