Climate and Ag in the news
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The latest IFAS bulletin discusses the difficulties that cattle ranchers in Florida are having after Hurricane Michael moved through in October. Hay is in short supply and winter grazing is behind schedule. But the producers are continuing to plug away and work on keeping their cattle in the best condition they can while watching the…
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Southeast Farm Press reported this week that the North Carolina agricultural commissioner is urging farmers to look into new crops to help diversify themselves in case of bad weather or market unrest. Some of the crops include carrots for natural coloring, poplar for veneer and industrial hemp. You can read more at https://www.farmprogress.com/crops/nc-ag-commissioner-urges-farmers-take-serious-look-new-crops.
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We’ve been watching for months, and today NOAA announced that El Niño has officially returned to the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The temperature conditions in the ocean have been showing a pattern that we expect in a weak El Niño, but until recently the atmospheric pattern did not match up with what we were seeing in…
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Bloomberg posted an interesting story at the end of January about the frequency of dangerous cold snaps similar to the one parts of the US experienced in recent weeks. Data suggests that the cold Arctic outbreaks that used to blast into the US in winter are becoming less frequent over time as the climate warms.…
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This week Popular Science posted an interesting new graphic on the global temperature. In addition to the yearly totals, it also highlights when the record high years occurred as the record got longer. It also highlights year by how much the temperature was above the long-term average. You can see a better view and read…
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The latest hurricane summary from NOAA for Hurricane Florence indicates that it was even more costly than originally estimated. According to The State, “The final tally on damage from Hurricane Florence is higher than the costs from 2016’s Hurricane Matthew and Hurricane Floyd in 1999 combined, new federal estimates show. Florence’s final cost was $24…
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Recent news stories have shown that 18 out of the past 19 years have been the earth’s warmest years on record (records began in 1880). But when were the coldest? It turns out that all of these years took place between 1884 and 1929, with the most freezing year of them all being 1904. The…