CR 18:249-257 (2001)  -  doi:10.3354/cr018249

ABSTRACT: The geographical distribution of the timings of phenological phases is a precondition for detecting regional trends of the annual timings of phenological phases and finding their relationships to climate changes. Therefore phenological maps of Europe have been computed showing long-term means, trends and annual timings of extreme years. In this article maps of the beginning, the end and the length of the growing season as means over the years 1961-1998 as well as for the warm year 1990 are presented. Strong dependences on altitude, longitude and latitude were computed both for single phenological phases and the beginning and end of the growing season. The goodness of fit for the regression equation was between 32% for the end and 83% for the beginning of growing season. The results were consistent with those of similar investigations.

KEY WORDS: Phenology · Maps · Growing season · GIS · Europe