January 2016
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National Public Radio published this story yesterday on the growth of the oyster industry in the Southeast. “The oyster industry is now casting its eye down the Southeast coast and seeing paradise,” says Rowan Jacobsen, author of The Essential Oyster: A Salty Appreciation of Taste And Temptation to be published in October. “More than 6,000…
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Lamont-Doherty Earth Laboratory of Columbia University just released a new set of Northern Hemisphere temperature data derived from tree rings that covers the last 1000 years. Tree rings are an important source of what is called “proxy” data, since scientists use information about how trees grow to determine the climate conditions which were affecting their…
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El Niño has been strongly affecting the climate of the Southeast for the past few months, leading to our current wet conditions. While temperatures in December were much warmer than expected for an El Niño winter, since then the Southeast has cooled down to more normal values. Cloudiness this year has also been an issue…
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Here’s a map I found on Twitter recently showing the record 3-day snowfall event for each part of the country, updated to include the storm from last weekend. It could be worse! I also read an article today in USA Today which discussed the increase in blizzards over time across the US. Research by geographer…
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Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Challenger disaster. The Challenger mission was a highly anticipated launch carrying not only astronauts but also teacher Christa McAuliffe into space. It was launched on a bitterly cold day in Florida with at a temperature of 36 degrees, 15 degrees colder than any previous launch. At 73 seconds into…
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The WunderBlog from Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground posted an article today pointing out that sixteen nations or territories set new all-time record high temperatures in 2015. Most of these were set in tropical regions where temperatures are already high, but Germany also set a record. You can read the article with the complete list here.
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
AgWeb posted an article yesterday describing the impacts of the recent heavy snow on dairy farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region. Most of them prepared in advance by putting out extra rations for the cows in sheltered spots and preparing to store milk if the milk haulers could not get through. How would you handle a…