I was doing some research for a project this week and ran across the EPA website of climate change indicators at https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/. Fortunately, it is still available at the EPA web site. I have also downloaded a copy of the full report to keep on hand, just in case. One of the things that really surprised me in this report was the trend in the last spring frost. While most of the country is experiencing an earlier last spring frost than in past decades, in Georgia and to a lesser extent Alabama the last spring frost date is actually later than it used to be, according to the graphics in the report. Similarly, the first fall frost is earlier and the growing season is shorter than in the past.
I need to do some more looking at the data to see why this is, but it’s an interesting and not very intuitive result. It might be linked to the lack of warming in the Southeast over the last 100 years compared to other parts of the country, but still it’s curious and makes me want to study it more. I’ll post more once I’ve looked into it.
