Warm Winter Wreaking Havoc With EU Harvests, Ag. Markets, Plant Diseases - AFP

Wheat harvested a month early, markets bursting with prematurely ripened produce, animals migrating too soon or not at all -- Europe's warmest winter on record has made nature run amok, experts across the continent have reported. With average temperatures in the three winter months of December through February more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average in most European countries, the environment's biological clock has been thrown off kilter, they say.

In Italy, emerging from the mildest winter in more than two centuries according to Bologna's Institute for Atmospheric Science and Climate, vegetables not normally seen until later in the season -- green beans, asparagus, peas, artichokes -- are already so abundant that merchants can't sell them.

In The Netherlands, where winter wheat has been harvested a month earlier than normal, scientists worry that unseasonably high temperatures will increase the risk of grain plant viruses caused by aphids. In neighboring Germany, half of barley crops in some regions have been hit with a weather-related blight of yellow dwarf disease, carried by fleas that do not normally survive the winter.

The Dutch nature observatory Natuurkalender has reported the "chaotic" disruption of normal butterfly lifecycles, with many species emerging from the cocoon far too early. Woodpeckers and swallows have likewise arrived a month ahead of schedule, they observed.


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http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Nature_Runs_Riot_In_Europe_Are_Warm_Winter_999.html