Katarzyna Jatczak

Phenological answer for tendencies of climate change in Poland over an European background

One of important aspects in climate change problems is an estimation of present and future follow-ups of these changes.

Studies performed all over Europe proved that reaction of plants and vegetations on rising air temperature was an excellent indicator of climate change.

On the basis of an analysis of directional coefficient of phenological trend (date of occurrence in sequential years) and of correlation coefficient between the dates of occurrence and mean air temperature it has been shown that the best bio-indicators of air temperature changes are plants of early spring, while the autumn processes are significantly wore.

During studies it has been shown that pan-European tendencies were confirmed over Poland as well.

Analyses of phenological phases of indicator plants for selected seasons have shown that in our country there were apparent tendencies of speeding up of growing processes of plants, especially these of early spring, connected with flowering and leafing (intense processes of growing). In spring falling trends occurred mainly for flowering of Corylus avellana and Taraxacum officinale (of about -2,4 day/decade)  and for leafing of Betula pendula  (-1,9 day/decade).

Spring trends seemed also to show strong correlation  with temperature  (correlation coefficients of about  -0,5 to  -0,7). Correlations with monthly mean air temperature have also shown that certain occurrence was affected mostly by an average temperature in previous month.

As far as phenological phases were concerned also speed-up could be seen in autumn. Still, the correlation with air temperature was not that obvious (correlation coefficient of about -0,1).

Studies performed all over Europe and in Poland proved that reaction of living organisms (e.g. selected indicator plants) was an excellent indicator of climate change.