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Move over Spring and Summer, say hello to Sprinter and Sprummer.

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Do you believe Dr Tim Entwisle is correct that the 4 sesons do not match Australia's Climate?

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Move over Spring and Summer, say hello to Sprinter and Sprummer. Empty Move over Spring and Summer, say hello to Sprinter and Sprummer.

Post  rikjpool Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:37 pm

THought that this would be an interesting read....

"A leading scientist says Australia desperately needs more seasons, as we are dangerously out-of-touch with our climate.

Dr Tim Entwisle, executive director of the Botanic Gardens Trust in Sydney, says there should be at least five seasons rather than four.

He says Australia has just slapped the European season system onto its climate, but it is not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.

"We should really rearrange our seasons because the system we have at the moment is one we've inherited from Europe and it doesn't make any sense in Australia," he told ABC News Online.

"Having four three-month seasons was not designed to fit around the Australian climate. It's a bit of tradition, but it doesn't make any sense in the place we live.

"Something with more seasons would work better and something that unhooks us from these arbitrary European seasons.

"What we haven't done is look around us: What actually happens is we think of spring, and we imagine warm weather and flowering, but in August you get this big flush of flowering."

Dr Entwisle believes our spring should be in August and September for only two months, then we should have a pre-summer in October and November, followed by a "real" summer from December to March - "We need a big, long summer" - and then a short autumn in April and May followed by a short winter in June and July.

He says this plan would not only better suit our climate, it would also help us better understand the effects of climate change.

"We're living through an era of accelerating climate change and so we need to be more attuned to the world around us and how it is changing," he said.

"If every year we think, for example, that spring comes early because it's in August that the flowers come out, then how are really going to detect any changes if we haven't even got our seasons understood?

"It's about understanding the place we live in and then looking at how that place is changing over time."

And even though Dr Entwisle believes five seasons would fit best, he says it is something that is open for debate.

"There's a lot of ideas out there, certainly Indigenous communities around Sydney have six seasons," he said

"There is a groundswell of people unhappy with the seasons we have."

He says the five-season plan would work up and down most of the east coast of the country, but it could be altered depending on where you live.

"Up in Darwin and in the north, you have either two seasons and Aboriginal people up there have six," he said.

"So clearly it's different for different places in Australia, but the four-season system doesn't work at all.

"I'd be encouraging different areas to have local regional seasons, to spend some time working that out and to use them to reflect what's going on around us."

And with no official season board or committee, it may be up to Aussies to name these potential seasons.

"There's a horrible name that's been suggested for the season between summer and spring, which would be sprummer," Dr Entwisle said.

"And then early spring could be sprinter. But I'd love to use a botantical name - a season called wattle would work for me.

"Who knows, maybe we could have a competition for season names?"

- ABC


In saying all of this, what would you call your sesons and when would they range to-from? Smile


Last edited by rikjpool on Thu Aug 20, 2009 1:41 pm; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Fixed up title...)
rikjpool
rikjpool

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Post  Karl Lijnders Thu Aug 20, 2009 5:23 pm

Rik I just saw this on the 7pm project on in the background here. I find it funny because it's true. Nothing matches up anymore. Birds are going feral - especially the magpies, I step out my back door and they swoop at me thinking I have food, THAT and I am as tall as a mountain ash. The cherry blossoms have been blooming earlier and earlier and I saw them out in the first week of JULY!!!

It is helping our storm chaces though Wink
Karl Lijnders
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Post  droughtbreaker Thu Aug 20, 2009 6:38 pm

Well, there are some very valid points made there, but I find where I live on the ranges the seasons pretty much follow the script. Admittedly we are probably about a month ahead of places in Northern Europe and North America which are at a much higher latitude but if you compared us to places at a similar latitude in the northern hemisphere, (if we were in Europe for example we would be about level with Northern Turkey and Southern Spain) we would be pretty comparable.

If I was to be really pedantic and devise seasons for here at Mount Macedon I would start Spring around now and end it around mid November, Summer would go from mid November to mid March and then autumn from mid March to mid June. So basically the same seasons but tweaked a bit in duration and start and end time.

I reckon it's a bit naive for Entwisle to suggest that the four seasons do not work for Australia at all. We get spring flowers coming out in spring, summer is dry and warm with hot days, around mid autumn we get the full autumn colour like in Europe and in winter the trees drop their leaves and it is cold and gloomy. Out in the bush the wildflowers don't really emerge here until around October and we don't get peak growth happening here in the garden or the forest/bush until about the same time or perhaps even later in November.

Sydney on the other hand and certainly Brisbane do not have the same marked seasons we do here in southern and mountain VIC and in Tasmania.

Global warming and climate change are tending to make spring earlier, autumn later and winter shorter/summer longer. Still the major effects of that are being felt in places like Melbourne and locations close to sea level. In the hills, despite the warming, it is still cool enough for 'proper' seasons.

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