Kristel Guimara Hello everyone and welcome! My name is Kristel Guimara and I currently live in the beautiful northern Adirondacks. I have my Bachelor's degree in Biology with a concentration in Environmental Science from Paul Smith's College located in Paul Smith's NY. Currently, I am in my second year of graduate school pursuing my Master's Degree in Conservation Biology from Green Mountain College in Poultney VT. I am currently researching the effects of black carbon concentration in the Adirondack snowpack which will be compared to samples taken in the Arctic Regions. This I hope will continue beyond my thesis requirement.
The local and regional structure and composition of plant communities will change over the next century as average temperatures and precipitation, as well as the frequency and intensity of severe weather events increase. Plants are highly sensitive and dearly affected by climate, and will shift northward by about 100 to 530 kilometers over the next 200 years.
Historical weather patterns provide an insight to long-term data collection to our local and regional temperatures. The recorded temperatures, for my general area, were as low as -30 degrees in 1984 and as high as 78 degrees in 1998 for the month of March but that is not the norm. Normally, the temperatures in my area range with an average low of 16 degrees and an average high of 40 degrees in March. Last week's daily temperatures were 30 degrees above normal when comparing them to the recorded long-term data collection.
The above normal temperatures finally broke this weekend and I welcomed the cool air once again. I am concerned and have pondered to what the summer season will bring. Will we have increased wildfires or perhaps a lowered water table? Or maybe the high temperatures were a strange occurrence and we will resume our normal average temperatures once again.
Agreed!