Climate change is silencing America’s famous fall foliage

America’s northeast is famous for its red, orange, and yellow fall foliage, but experts say climate change is tarnishing colors and delaying the high season, worrying the region’s multi-billion dollar “leaf-peeping” tourism industry.
Warmer temperatures and heavier rains keep leaves green longer, while extreme weather events like heat waves and storms bare trees before they hit fall, according to conservationists.
“Climate change is making us less likely to get those perfect fall color representations,” Andy Finton, a forest ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts, told AFP.
Several delicate factors work together to make the leaves create the vibrant colors that adorn New England postcards and attract visitors to states like Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire each October.
The right combination of summer heat and rainfall, followed by sunny days and cooler nights when the days get shorter, is needed to break down the chlorophyll and reveal the yellow and orange carotenoid pigments that give ash and birch a golden hue.
But the more complicated process by which leaves produce sugar, which creates the red anthocyanin pigments seen in sugar maples and black gum trees, is what worries arborists most.
Hotter days, coupled with warmer nights and cloudy skies caused by increased rainfall, slow down photosynthesis and threaten those deep red colors loved by “leaf scouts”.
“What you will see are more muted colors,” said Finton.
Leaf-peeping is a slang term in the United States used to describe the recreational activity of traveling to see and photograph autumn colors.
Numerous tracking websites attempt to predict where and when the peak of fall foliage will occur on its way south through New England, including Massachusetts and Connecticut, and into New York.
However, ecologists say climate change is pushing the season back, making it harder to predict when the leaves will turn and threatens to shorten the window if followed by a rapid cold snap.
Stephanie Spera, an environmental scientist at the University of Richmond, studies the effects of climate change on fall foliage in Acadia National Park, Maine.
“What we’re seeing is that it’s about a full week later than it was in the 1950s,” and is now arriving around the second week of October, Spera told AFP.
Barbara Brummer, a field biologist with the Nature Conservancy’s New Jersey office, estimates that this year it was at least two weeks late “from what could normally have happened 100 years ago.”
Fall foliage tourism is big business in the northeast. It contributes $ 300 million to Vermont’s economy each year, according to official figures.
In the fall, more than 500 people visit Polly’s Pancake Parlor in New Hampshire every day to marvel at the colors of the White Mountains.
The restaurant has been recording when the leaves change color since the 1970s to keep track of how the weather is affecting visitor numbers.
“Fall is a big part of our business and customers would ask, ‘When is the best time to visit?” Owner Kathie Cote told AFP, adding that she was “definitely worried” about climate change.
Alejandro Bertagnoli, a 31-year-old tourist from Argentina, and his girlfriend visited New York’s Central Park in early November and were surprised at how green the leaves were.
“The pictures seem to be different from what you normally see. But it’s still fun, ”he told AFP.
Warmer, more humid temperatures also help invasive pests and diseases live longer and spread further, according to Pete Smith, urban forestry program manager at the Arbor Day Foundation.
“There’s nothing worse for the fall color than a dead tree,” he told AFP. Extreme weather events also cause chaos.
In September, heavy rains and strong winds tore down trees and tore leaves from branches as a result of Hurricane Ida.
Ecologists are also concerned about leaf burning, a phenomenon observed in the western United States this summer when brutal temperatures burned leaves brown and deprived them of their pigment.
They say CO2 emissions need to be reduced and forests need to be preserved to protect the foliage.
While they acknowledge that foliage isn’t high on the agenda at COP26, healthy leaves mean healthy forests that are essential to the environment.
The leaves that develop sugar on the branches and trunks of trees to provide nourishment for spring.