ca | Flowers visible from space

It’s called super flowering. An extraordinary event with stunning colors that can be seen even from space over California. However, this phenomenon could become extremely rare in the future due to climate change. Four color overview.

These are really cool pictures. Nature seems to be in control after all. Why do you say that the phenomenon is exceptional?

Researchers at the University of California counted 10 miraculous flowers (Super blooms in English) in Southern California for the past 40 years. Nine times out of ten, it occurred after a period of heavier-than-average rainfall. Cooler temperatures in the spring also favor superior blooms. The last such event occurred in 2019. “The super bloom of 2023 is an extraordinary event. It is one of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen,” notes Naomi Fraga. Journalism. It’s an amazing event for a botanist,” adds the California Botanic Garden’s director of conservation programs.

It makes botanists geek, it just seems so obvious to me. But apart from specialists, this super-vase should not really interest the public.

You’re in the field, if you’ll excuse us for our wordplay! This event has also become very popular among the population. In 2019, during the last big boom, many Californians visited their fields to photograph stunning landscapes. It was not uncommon to see queues to enter sites hosting such scenes. Visit California devotes a section of its website to the phenomenon and suggests the best places to see the most beautiful blooming landscapes.

I understand that, but maybe these are people obsessed with gardening…

There are a lot of them! Last February, the authorities announced the closure of the Walker Canyon site, south of Los Angeles, for the duration of the flowering period, to avoid the “nightmare” scenario that occurred in 2019, during the period of the last big flowering. That year, motorists stopped squarely along Interstate 15 to photograph the landscape. The California Highway Patrol had to send officers there to manage traffic and one of them died after being hit by a car when he was giving a ticket to a motorist. “There wasn’t a single neighborhood that wasn’t affected by traffic jams,” Lake Elsinore Mayor Natasha Johnson told the Weekly recently. Desert sun. Our five freeway exits into town are blocked. The highway was completely closed, and people were getting out of their cars. Our lifeguards were struggling to make their way through the traffic. Our population has not had quality of life for several weeks. The flowers were beautiful, but the scenery was a nightmare. »

Fortunately it doesn’t happen every year…

The mayor of Lake Elsinore would probably agree with you, actually. It should be noted that droughts in California in recent years have literally prevented wildflower seeds buried in the ground from germinating. Surprisingly, however, these can lie dormant for years, waiting for rain. Experts say Superblooms makes it possible to imagine what California looked like hundreds of years ago. But such sightings are likely to be extremely rare in the future.

What do you mean ?

“flowering [de 2023] It could be the best by the end of our days. Evan Meyer, director of Theodore Payne Foundation, which advocates for the preservation of native plants, said V.I Washington Post. “The effects of climate change will certainly have an impact on these ecosystems,” adds Naomi Fraga. This can lead to the breeding of invasive species, prolonged droughts and changes in precipitation patterns. It is difficult to say exactly what will happen, but if we experience severe droughts for several years, these events may become increasingly rare. »

sources: Washington PostAnd Desert sunAnd New York timesNASA