Comments on “Changes in the onset of dpring in the western United States” reply

We thank Dr. Lilly for his comment (Lilly 2001) concerning the possibility that the trend toward early lilac and honeysuckle bloom that we noted in our recent (Cayan et al. 2001) study may have been caused by urbanization. For some individual lilac or honeysuckle bushes, it is very possible that such an urban influence could be operating. Unfortunately, because the phenological network has vanished after it was retired in 1994, it is virtually impossible to examine this directly from site inspections. However, the circumstantial evidence that this trend is a symptom of regional and larger-scale climate fluctuations or changes, not from local urban effects, is quite strong, as explained below.