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TV Coverage of Cycling Races Can Help Document the Effects of Climate Change (phys.org)
Researchers from Ghent University were able to detect climate change impacts on trees in Belgium by analyzing nearly four decades of archive footage from the Tour of Flanders. The findings were published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. Phys.Org reports: Focusing on trees and shrubs growing around recognizable climbs and other 'landmarks' along the route of this major annual road cycling race in Belgium, the team looked at video footage from 1981 to 2016 obtained by Flemish broadcaster VRT. They visually estimated how many leaves and flowers were present on the day of the course (usually in early April) and linked their scores to climate data. The ecologists found that the trees had advanced the timing of leafing and flowering in response to recent temperature changes. Before 1990, almost no trees had grown leaves at the time of the spring race. After that year, more and more trees visible in the television footage -- in particular magnolia, hawthorn, hornbeam and birch trees -- were already in full leaf. These shifts were most strongly related to warmer average temperatures in the area, which have increased by 1.5 degrees Celsius since 1980.
https://xkcd.com/1732/
Please explain how temperatures are rising at unprecedented levels then, oh genius
Let's test your "it's been warming since the end of the last ice age" hypothesis. The global land-ocean index has risen by about 1 C in the past 50 years, and it's forecast to warm another 2 C in the 21st Century. At that rate, the planet will be uninhabitable in only several centuries. So I think we can safely conclude that normal climate cycles aren't responsible.
Oh, fuck it. Let's put it a different way. Imagine that the planet is a fishbowl and the fish have a nasty habit of chain smoking. They've noticed that the water is getting cloudy and their gills are having to work harder to breathe, but they're convinced it must be due to silt from the bottom, not from their dim-witted behaviour in a closed system.
Why this has to be a political issue is beyond me. It's only a matter of time before the raging masses start challenging the existence of gravity and the laws of physics. Faith based engineering is just around the corner...