About this Site
This web site was a project of the University of Vermont's Field Naturalist Program, and graduate student Rosemary Mosco. The project was completed in Spring, 2010, with support and encouragement from the Burlington Legacy Project.
Thank you to the many local researchers, activists and members of the community who helped with the project!
About Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the US state of Vermont. It is located on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain, the sixth largest freshwater lake in America. Burlington is bracketed by the Adirondack Mountains to the west and the Green Mountains to the east.
Burlington is a vibrant community with a rich natural environment, and it's a beautiful place to visit in all seasons.
You can read more about it at the City of Burlington web site.
Project References
The material for this project came from interviews with researchers and members of not-for-profit organizations, as well as the following papers and reports:
Winter
Assel, R.K. 1999. Great Lakes Ice Cover. In Lam, D.C.L. and W.M. Schertzer, Eds., Potential Climate Change Effects on Great Lakes Hydrodynamics and Water Quality. Reston: American Society of Civil Engineers.
Hodgkins, G.A., I.C. James, and T.G. Huntington. 2002. Historical changes in lake ice-out dates as indicators of climate change in New England, 1850-2000. International Journal of Climatology 22: 1819-1827.
Scott D., G. McBoyle, G. Mills and A. Minogue. 2006. Climate change and the sustainability of ski-based tourism in eastern North America: A reassessment. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 14(4): 376-398.
Spring
Aono, Y. 1998. Climate change in March temperature deduced from phenologocal record for flowering of cherry tree in Tokyo since the late 18th century. Bulletin of Osaka Prefecture University, Ser.B 50: 11-19.
Dunn, P.O. and D.W. Winkler. 1999. Climate change has affected the breeding date of tree swallows throughout North America. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B. 266: 2487-2490.
Kudo, G., Y. Nishikawa, T. Kasagi and S. Kosuge. 2004. Does seed production of spring ephemerals decrease when spring comes early?. Ecological Research 19(2): 255-259.
Mills, A.M. 2005. Changes in the timing of spring and autumn migration in North American migrant passerines during a period of global warming. Ibis 147(2): 259-269.
Walther, G.-R., E. Post, P. Convey, A. Menze, C. Parmesan, T.J.C. Beebee, J.-M. Fromentin, O. Hoegh-Guldberg and F. Bairlein. 2002. Ecological responses to recent climate change. Nature 416: 389-395.
Summer
Callaway, R. M., and E. T. Aschehoug. 2000. Invasive plants versus their new and old neighbours: a mechanism for exotic invasion. Science 290:521-523.
Dello, K. 2008. Trends in Climate in Northern New York and Western Vermont. NYSBA Government, Law and Policy Journal. 10(1): 78-89.
Dupigny-Giroux, L.-A. 1999. Drought follows the deluge in Vermont. Drought Network News, 11(2): 8-14.
Seidl, A. 2009. Early Spring: An Ecologist and Her Children Wake to a Warming World. Boston: Beacon Press.
Ziska, L.H., D.E. Gebhard, D.A. Frenz, S. Faulkner, B.D. Singer, and J.G. Straka. 2003. Cities as harbingers of climate change: Common ragweed, urbanization, and public health. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 111(2): 290-295.
Fall
Iverson, L. R. and A. M. Prasad. 2001. Potential changes in tree species richness and forest community types following climate change. Ecosystems 4:186-199.
Jackson, S.T. and D.R. Whitehead. Holocene Vegetation Patterns in the Adirondack Mountains. Ecology, 72(2): 641-653.
FAQ
Quirin, S. 2009. Fixing the sky. Nature 460(7257): 792-5.
Solomon, S., G.K. Plattner, R. Knutti, and P. Friedlingstein. 2009. Irreversible climate change due to carbon dioxide emissions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 106(6): 1704-9.
