While climate change may not dictate the arrival of Fall colors, it does affect this phenomenon… and its eventual disappearance.
“Usually, the colors peak in the first week of October, but here we are on October 16, and in Montreal, it’s still pretty green on Mount Royal,” Benoît Côté, Professor in McGill’s Natural Resource Sciences department and former director of the Morgan Arboretum, told leDroit in an interview last week.
What determines first and foremost the transition from green to red and orange is the decrease in light as days get shorter.
However, although temperature is not the primary reason for the changing colours of leaves, a warmer season is still a “big factor” in slowing the shift, Professor Côté says. A rainy August also contributed—as long as trees have enough water and nutrients to meet their needs, the colour change will be delayed as the tree continues to grow. Temperature and precipitation are both affected by climate change.
Although he says plant life is ultimately very resilient, in Professor Côté’s opinion, the biggest threat to Quebec’s forests associated with climate change is the arrival of new insect pests and diseases.