Summer Scurries Before Fall
A sugar maple leaf transitions from summer to fall earlier this week. Bob King Have we come this far again? Yes, we have. While the pandemic has made some of us feel stuck in time, the Earth hurries along its orbit like an eager dog on a walk. Yesterday, daylight still dominated night by just a hair. Today they're equal at 12 hours apiece. In the brief interim summer became fall. It happened officially at 8:30 a.m. CDT today (September 22). Achieving this delicate balance took six full months, and it will only take a day to break it. Tomorrow, night will have a slight edge, and by November, we'll wonder where all the light went. Fewer hours of daylight mean less sunshine and that leads to falling temperatures and seasonal change. One of those changes occurs in tree leaves. Chlorophyll, the pigment that gives leaves their green color, uses sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into energy and food. It takes a lot of energy to make chlorophyll so when daylight dwindles and