Grab your coffee and join us on Tuesday, January 14th! 

Discovery of 200 year-old Records of NY State Climate: Uncovering how the past compares to the present and near future under rapid climate change

Join us in learning about the discovery of a vast trove of historical climate records for New York State from the early to mid-19th century — likely the first systematic climate observing network anywhere in the world. Our program includes speakers Conrad Vispo and Anna Duhon of the Hawthorne Valley Farmscape Ecology Program, who will describe the first-of-its-kind historical meteorological and phenological network of citizen science throughout New York State from 1826-1872. Kerissa Fuccillo Battle, the Founding Director of Community Greenways Collaborative, will demonstrate how historical records of plant phenology — the seasonal timing of events — have already revealed multi-week changes in springtime flowering and leaf-out. Jeff Freedman from the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center at the University at Albany (SUNY) will present regional climate predictions for the mid-21st century, highlighting the still-unknown aspects of how such changes contrast with the pre-global warming past. Wrapping it all up will be Anton Seimon from Bard College, who will outline some major research questions to guide analysis as we compare the historical archives to current data collected by the New York State Mesonet, a state-of-the-science contemporary version of the historical network.