A 25-year-old tradition tracking a Dunedin magnolia tree blossoming could unearth some deeper trends.
However, university staff say much more data would be needed to attribute its earlier blooms to a warming climate.
Since 1995 members of the department have tracked ''Magnolia Day'', or the day when a magnolia tree in the quad outside the geology department flowers.
While results are scattered, they show a trend towards earlier blossoming.
The tree was planted in 1965 by then head of botany Dr Geoff Baylis and is now dedicated to his memory.
The magnolia flowering was first followed by former geology department administrator John Williams, who kept track of it in a 1978 calendar.
''I was coming back from a field trip near the Grand Tetons near Yellowstone park. I bought this beautiful calendar and kept it the whole time I worked there.''
The record-keeping started on a whim, he said.
''You see it up there when you are walking along the passages. It's such a beautiful part of God's creation.
''After a few years I actually started to put it up on the board. I just headed it 'Magnolia Day'.''
Former student services director David Richardson also kept records, but used a different method of noting the first sign of pink in the buds.
Despite a trend towards earlier blooming, much more information would be needed to correlate that with a warming climate, Dr Williams said.
''There are not enough data points. There's so much local weather and it might depend on rainfall to some extent.''
Dr Williams retired in 2015 and handed the baton of recording to department computing and numerical simulation technician Hamish Bowman.
He now uses a webcam to get a precise reading, and some staff and students bet on when the buds will open.
University herbarium technician John Steel said he would need much more information to make anything of the data.
''Maybe trees flower earlier as they age; maybe growing taller is conducive to earlier flowering; maybe there is just more hot air coming from universities these days.''
The current emphasis in the media on climate change could make such events as magnolia flowering stand out, whereas in the past they might have gone unnoticed, he said.
