FALL COLOR IS LATER THIS YEAR THAN LAST

'AUTUMN BLAZE' MAPLES, OCT. 7, 2014

'AUTUMN BLAZE' MAPLES ON OCT. 8, 2015

Thursday,  8:30 AM.  52 degrees F at the ferry dock, 49 on the back porch.  Wind SW, calm with light gusts.  The sky is overcast and it rained a bit last night (good for our recent planting job).  The humidity is still 91% and the barometer is falling, now at 29.53".
   I have been trying to determine whether this year's fall color is truly later than last year or other previous years, and it probably is by a day or two, but it is really hard to determine, as some species or even individuals  are markedly different than the last year or two but others are not.
   Nature is so variable that I find it hard, if not impossible, to generalize.  One would have to photograph specific trees or shrubs over many years to arrive at an average date of full fall color for that specimen, and I doubt there would be any statistically significant difference even at that.
   I only bring this all up to emphasize how difficult it is to accurately measure such variation in the natural world, and to come to any accurate conclusions about natural phenomena such as "climate change" or "global warming." Are the data all scientifically accurate? Is the instrumentation all the same? Is the theoretical premise the same? One investigator's truth is another's fiction.
  Is the title statement of this post correct?  I assume so, but I don't really know.