TREES are displaying autumn colours earlier than usual after the record temperatures of the heatwave put them under huge stress.
Trees and hedgerows across Worcester have transformed into their autumn colours early.
An experienced Worcestershire gardener says the early change has been caused by the trees being placed under stress by the hot weather and drought-like conditions.
Record temperatures were hit in Worcester last month during a Met Office red extreme heat warning and an amber extreme heat warning was also in force last week.
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Many trees are now displaying the golds, ambers, browns and reds one would normally associate with autumn while the pavements already have a carpet of fallen leaves in places, something you might expect to see in September and October, not August.
We approached the University of Worcester for a scientific explanation of the phenomenon but nobody was available to comment.
Heather Marsh, head gardener at Arley Arboretum, said: "In mid-August we are seeing a few colour changes already, the Acer capillipes (Snake-bark maple) has red tinges to the leaves, the common hazel, Corylus avellana is turning yellow and shedding leaves.
"Our smaller Cercidiphyllum japonicum (Katsura) has shed practically all its leaves. These early changes indicate that the trees have been stressed by the prolonged dry period and the very high temperatures experienced over the last few weeks."
Worcester city Green councillor Louis Stephen said: "We've now had two heatwaves this summer and with the drought conditions the trees have been pushed into an earlier autumn.
"UK and world temperatures have been increasing for many years now and it's having a massive effect on wildlife as well as our economy.
"These record breaking temperatures will also have had a massive effect on mortality - sustained high temperatures have a big effect on elderly and frail members of our community."
Scientists have gone on record to say that global heating appears to be making trees drop their leaves earlier, quoting new research.
The latest data confounds the idea that warmer temperatures delay the onset of autumn.
The rising temperatures also mean that spring is arriving earlier and, overall, the growing season for trees in the planet’s temperate zones is getting longer.
However, the earlier autumns mean that significantly less carbon can be stored in trees than previously thought, providing less of a brake on global heating.
Research, published in the journal Science, used more than 430,000 leaf fall observations from trees at 3,800 sites across central Europe from 1948 to 2015, as well as experiments and modelling.
Photosynthesis in leaves converts CO2 from the atmosphere into carbon compounds that the tree uses to live and grow. If the tree can no longer use the carbon, it stops maintaining its leaves and they fall.
It is not known what specific factor, or combination of factors, triggers this halt in growth, but it may be the availability of nitrogen. About 94 per cent of deciduous trees cannot supply their own nitrogen, so the researchers think their findings are likely to apply to most trees in temperate zones around the world.
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