There s been a news story developing lately in the commonwealth of massachusetts, but to see it, to fully take it in, you have to slow down, get off the grid and be very quiet. it s like the old expression about stopping to smell the roses, but in this case, it s about butterflies. and these butterflies may be on to something bigger than even massachusetts. we get the story tonight from our chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson. reporter: in this lush garden of verbena, butterflies that have long called massachusetts home three american ladies. reporter: are making way for an influx of butterflies from the south, like fiery skippers. until recently, more likely to
Light in florida and texas than new england. we call them accidentals. in the old days, you would see perhaps one or two fiery skippers, and now you see dozens. reporter: the shift of southern butterflies to the increasingly warmer north is detailed in the journal nature. harvard professor greg breed is the study s lead scientist. we see the species that are more adapted to warmer clients are increasing, and species that are adapting to colder climates are decreasing. it seems sensible to infer that this is some climate driven pattern. reporter: is it climate change? that would be the most logical inference. reporter: the study is built on the work of citizen scientists. all members of the massachusetts butterfly club, and the 20,000 sightings they ve noted over a period of 19 years. the data includes tom ganion s notes. so how do you keep your records? how do you know what s been here? i have a running log right here that i keep. reporter: other club members add their
Researchers monitor ten sites across the u.s. and canada, between 1995 and 2009. they measured daily temperatures and corresponding pollen count. their findings are nothing to sneeze at. they say higher temperatures are causing people to sneeze, snort and sniff earlier and for several weeks longer. in papillion, nebraska, pollen season grew by 11 days. lacrosse, wisconsin, 13 days. and residents of minneapolis, minnesota, had 16 additional days of suffering. scientists may have found a connection between the farenheit scale and the gesundheit scale. they say as the earth s temperature rises, so does the misery index of allergy sufferers. the increased carbon dioxide doesn t just raise global temperatures. this will speed up plant growth, so that plants are capable of producing more pollen. reporter: and that means even people who never suffered