Family albums highlight climate change

Experts turn to old notebooks and photos to press home global warming message.

Michael Hopkin

Climate researchers and ecologists are usually known for using complex computer simulations to study environmental change. But Boston University researchers are using more humble sources to determine the effects of climate change on local flora and fauna.

For the past three years, Richard Primack and Abraham Miller-Rushing have asked Massachusetts residents with long memories and a record-keeping habit to show how rising temperatures over the decades have changed the nature around them.

The data they have collected from amateur naturalists, farmers, landscape gardeners and photographers show that trees are sprouting leaves earlier in spring, birds are changing their migratory habits, and the patterns of flowers' blooming is changing.