Darker syrup this year caused my climate change?

[DaveB]

I saw this and wanted to share. The headline is what caught my eye. They are essentially blaming the color of syrup this year to climate change. To me, that's a little misleading. It's a mild year due mainly to El Nino but we knew it would be mild going into it. It wasn't climate change that caused the syrup to be dark - there are other forces at play but I guess if you need to attract readers:

http://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/29/your-maple-syrup-will-be-darker-this-year-and-its-likely-due-to/21335183/

[GeneralStark]

Certainly a pretty poorly written article. No question some in the industry are concerned about how climate change will impact the maple season in years to come. Likely more dark syrup has been produced this season especially in southern regions. Certainly El Nino was the major impact on this winter's "weird" weather, and from what I have been reading some climatologists feel that this strong El Nino was likely exaggerated by climate change. Also, 2015 was the warmest year on record by alot so ti will be interesting to see how 2016 turns out given the overall pattern has continued.

[abbott]

Wish I had some darker syrup. It got cold again here in Maine and the syrup has been Amber for a while. I've got a lot of customers who want the Very Dark and I'm worried I won't make any this year. They're talking record cold for the weekend.

Not denying that climate change exists, but its a very very very slow process. We can't blame any individual event (or even season) on it, only look at long term trends.

[zandstrafarms]

How about we swap for a bit! I've tapped since mid February and only gotten very dark syrup! Started with 50% silvers too! Now all black and sugars as the silvers and c reds are flowered.
Doing 17gph, 53 gal sap for one gal syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

The syrup is darker this year? Mine has all been Golden and Amber just like last year when it was much colder than this year.

[Snappyssweets]

yeah last year I had dark amber only this year I ended up with nothing but Medium to fancy. 14057

[325abn]

Change!! It's what climate does! :)

[Michael Greer]

I'm less concerned about the color of the syrup that I am with the idea that certain types of trees may not survive even a little change. They're already predicting that those high-elevation conifers in the Adirondacks may succumb to just a few years of higher than normal summer temperatures. The Maples that we're all so fond of only grow in a relatively small portion of the planet, and they can't uproot themselves and head North like some of the rest of nature.

[abbott]

I'm less concerned about the color of the syrup that I am with the idea that certain types of trees may not survive even a little change. They're already predicting that those high-elevation conifers in the Adirondacks may succumb to just a few years of higher than normal summer temperatures. The Maples that we're all so fond of only grow in a relatively small portion of the planet, and they can't uproot themselves and head North like some of the rest of nature.

Actually they kinda can. If in 1,000 years the climate has change enough, the types of trees that grow in certain places would shift accordingly. Plenty of time for them to sprout farther north. If.

[DaveB]

Actually they kinda can. If in 1,000 years the climate has change enough, the types of trees that grow in certain places would shift accordingly. Plenty of time for them to sprout farther north. If.

Right. If the the northern edge of their range becomes more hospitable, they will just just spreading in that direction.

One thing to consider is that the trees that folks are worried about dying are living today well south of us in places that have much warmer summers and winters. I wouldn't be concerned about that.

To me, the article was totally misleading to the public as a means to bringing the highly political climate change topic up. As some have pointed out, some producers never even had/have darker syrup and they had the same temperatures as other people. "Climate change" is not the reason for someones dark syrup.

[saphound]

Does anyone really know what causes dark syrup? There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for it, but there must be some reason. The last batch I made is so dark you can't even see the niter after 5 days of settling in a big glass jar. Everything before that was amber to dark amber.

Edit:
Well, there is a rhyme and reason to it, and DR.Tim explains it perfectly in another thread, post #4.
http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?28363-Color-of-syrup-and-judging-where-in-season

[BlueberryHill]

Exactly. There are maples in MO, VA, TN that are being tapped. Why are those trees not dead? Is all syrup from the south dark?

[markcasper]

Dark syrup is caused by #1, too much bacteria in the sap and/or #2 too much heating/reheating. Too bad the people that dream these things up don't know what starvation is!

[Michael Greer]

Dark syrup is caused by anything that interrupts the quick-and-clean process. I fill a sample bottle every session and it looks just like a record of the weather over the last month. My lightest syrup came from those perfect days that had night-time temps in the 20s and daytime temps in the 40s. When we had a cold spell that caused a delay for a couple days, that stuff in the evaporator got dark. When we had a three day hot spell, the sap in the buckets was a bit ugly, and resulted in darker syrup. On one of those breaks, I cleaned everything, and made syrup that was two grades lighter. none of this should be a surprise.
What IS a surprise is that this was the worst, most unpredictable, wacky weather season I can remember. All of agriculture is built upon the ability to predict what next season's weather will look like. Farmers bet their financial future on predictability, and make their sometimes thin reward on that fine margin between predictable and disastrous. Sugaring is much the same, and not one of us can tell in January what kind of year it will be.
Indeed, my syrup was darker this year, and unpredictable weather is the direct, tangible result of climate change.

[DaveB]

Indeed, my syrup was darker this year, and unpredictable weather is the direct, tangible result of climate change.

This years wacky weather was caused by El Nino which has been happening for thousands of years and is part of the climate record. Whether of not any of the warmer temperatures were impacted by over all warming is up for debate but the entire process is not a result of climate change. As others have pointed out, their syrup was not darker this year and the effect would have to be beyond one region for it to be caused by something systemic like climate change.

The bottom line is that darker syrup is not caused by warmer temperatures which is what the article was alluding to.

FWIW, I am a meteorologist and as far as I know, weather is unpredictable and always has been.

[mudr]

Species can migrate, but they must be able to move at the same rate as the habitat modifier, in this case climate change. There are some species that ecologists are concerned will not be able to move fast enough, think slow growing, long time to first reprodiction, narrow habitat requifements, and limited dispersal ability. Maples may fall in to that but I haven't seen a research paper on them.

Some of the projections based on IPCC models projects that my region, western NY, will have a climate in 2200 (I think that was the year) that is similar to that of present-day Ohio/Indiana. There are large areas whose projected climates do not hAve present day analogs. I would *guess* that the central Adirondack may be in a situation like that. Tough to make predictions based on that.