SPEAKER 1: There's so many questions
that need to be answered.
There's more natural disasters.
There are more extreme droughts.
There's more extreme weather events.
There's an urgency within the climate community
and in climate scientists.
THERESA CRIMMINS: The USA National Phenology Network
is a science and monitoring initiative
that's national scale.
We exist to collect, store, and share data and information
about phenology.
Phenology is all about when things happen.
It pertains to the timing of events that occur seasonally
in plants and animals.
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SPEAKER 1: I'm interested in how climate change is
impacting our forests.
With climate change, we're seeing warmer winters.
We're seeing warmer springs, and we're getting this earlier bud
burst in the spring.
And so these leaves are coming out,
and oftentimes they're at a time when these late spring freezing
events can still be really damaging.
So by watching changes in bud burst,
we can observe how the climate is changing over time.
So it's a great tracker or proxy for climate change.
This is frost damage.
This is pretty standard look of what
freezing damage looks like.
It smells like it was hit by a frost,
and what probably-- ideally I want to get data
from tons of species.
Every species is different.
So the more information I can get on bud burst and leaf
out across as many species as I possibly can would be ideal.
I use the Nature's Notebook.
We have a whole slew of volunteers called the tree
spotters.
Almost every day someone is going out,
sometimes multiple observers a day.
So that's really high quality data
that I can access quite easily.
THERESA CRIMMINS: The data that have
been coming in through Nature's Notebook
have slowly and steadily been growing in number.
Those data can be used by researchers
and non-professional for exploring patterns
in how things are occurring over the course of the year
as well as changing from year to year.
MICHAEL DIETZE: Phenology happens rapidly
in many places at the same time.
Can we predict phenology accurately three days
in advance, five days in advance, two weeks in advance?
So in my own lab, we've been focusing
on is this idea of iterative ecological forecast.
We have some new information that's coming in continuously.
We want to update our understanding
on a closer to real time basis.
There's a question of--
we're starting to see the actual green out in bud burst
in early leaving-- my graduate student who's
making these phenology forecasts wanted to validate
what she's doing in the field.
Though, she could not move across all
of these different locations in real time.
Some of that large data is coming
from formal observatories and observation networks,
but also the community science represents a real untapped gem
for what we're doing.
JAKE WELTZIN: What we really need to do
is use the army of observers that
are part of the phenology network
to help collect the data to not only build the models but then
also to validate those models.
We are moving towards implementing
phenoforecasts or phenological forecasting, which
is a new and exciting area where we are really truly
being able to deliver real time and forecasted information
directly to the hands of users who
are using that to make natural resource management decisions.
THERESA CRIMMINS: A projection or a prediction
about where we think buffel grass will be green
and therefore he should go out and treat it.
BEN WILDER: One of things I think
that's fantastic about this product
you launched in June is it's already giving me real time
information where it matches what
I'm seeing on the landscape it tells me
when I can go out and control the invasive species buffel
grass on the land I manage.
JAKE WELTZIN: We are sort of on the cutting edge
of trying to apply new theory about how do we as scientists
work with resource managers to better understand what
their needs are and to more effectively
and efficiently deliver the information that they need.
THERESA CRIMMINS: Through these phenoforecasts,
we've started to deliver products
that are seemingly valuable to decision-makers and folks who
are making decisions on the ground.
And we're really excited to continue
to grow in this direction and expand the suite of products
that we can offer and really identify
where is phenology information valuable and important
and in what format can we deliver that that can really
make a difference.