This week the Southeast Regional Extension Climate Academy (SRECA) is meeting in Athens GA to talk about climate change and its impacts on the Southeast. Over 100 people, representing 11 different states, are gathered to discuss the science of changing climate (both natural and man-made changes) and how those changes affect crops, livestock, forests, and the coasts in the Southeast. In honor of the meeting, here are some current media stories on topics we are covering in SRECA this week. You can read more about SRECA at https://www.pinemap.org/sreca-conference-site.
NASA has a new web site dedicated to showing how climate has changed over time. This web site lists key indicators of climate change and their trends in graphical form as well as explanations for what the graphs are showing. You can find this information at https://climate.nasa.gov/key_indicators/.
The Guardian posted an article on climate modeling and how recent improvements in models have allowed climatologists to understand the recent hiatus in warming. The most recent work shows that the warming predicted by earlier climate models has been partially counteracted by decreases in solar input, increases in volcanic aerosols, and heat storage in the deeper ocean. You can read the article by clicking here.
One of the difficulties in explaining climate change to farmers is why we should worry about it now, when the temperature changes will not be large for several decades. A Yahoo News article from September 2 shows why climate change impacts may start to affect world food supplies a lot sooner. Those most affected are likely to be the people with the least disposable income. You can read the story by clicking here.
