Sometimes, the only way to record proper results is to do it yourself. That was the case for University of Maryland biologist David Inouye, who began counting flower blooms on a particular mountainside in Colorado in 1974, according to Red Orbit. Thirty nine years later, he's amassed enough data to demonstrate how climate change has extended the region's bloom season by over a month. Previously, it began in May and ended in early September. Now, it begins in April and lasts until late September.

Most useful about Inouye's study is the "advanced" method by which he and numerous colleagues over the years tallied their results. Previous studies relied on first blooms without tracking the behavior of individual flowers throughout the season. Inouye's way is more accurate, thereby better accounting for climate change's effects on flowers and the ecosystem of which they are a part.

"Most studies rely on first dates of events like flowering or migration, because they use historical data sets that were not intended as scientific studies," Inouye told Red Orbit. "First flowering is easy to observe. You don't have to take the time to count flowers. So that's often the only information available. It has taken a lot of effort to get the comprehensive insights needed for this analysis, which helps us understand how ecological communities are going to change in the future."

Inouye began counting wild flowers to better understand the food source of hummingbirds. Once again, he's after some of the same questions. Because hummingbirds lay their eggs to coincide with certain blooms (which feed their young), Inouye is wondering if a longer season (but one with same overall number of flowers) might affect the species. He plans on tracking them with radio transmitters to find out.