Tim Sparks is proof that you can make what is considered one of the "great scientific discoveries" and still end up in the unemployment line. Sparks was a prominent figure in the study of the new seasons of climate change and the discovery that global warming was causing a reaction amongst plants and wildlife before humans even caught wind of the situation. Despite being called a pioneer in global warming, Sparks may soon be out of a job when the Monks Wood wildlife research centre where he is employed as a statistician, closes due to government cutbacks.

Some of the revelations of Sparks' research include:

- The winter season is growing shorter as spring occurs earlier and autumn later, during the year.

- Brimstone and orange tip butterflies are emerging from cocoons approximately two weeks earlier than they used to. The red admiral butterfly, at one time only seen in Britain during the summer months, can now be spotted in January.

- Several flowers have started blooming sooner than they once did in the 1950s. Lesser celandines now flower three weeks earlier, poppies two weeks sooner and stinging nettles are ahead by 10 days.

- Swallows, house sparrows and robins lay eggs a week earlier than they previously did.

Sparks demonstrated evidence of these changes by bringing back the discipline of phenology, the study of the timing of natural events.

» The Independent