Climate and Ag in the news
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The weather this year has not been good to lemon growers, resulting in near-record high prices this summer. The weather in California has been very hot and dry, leading to reductions in production of lemons and Valencia oranges. The weather in Mexico and Chile, two other growing areas, has also impacted lemon supplies. People are…
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Time magazine has a really interesting long-form story this week about a new weather model that is being developed at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton NJ which could significantly improve weather forecasting on the time period of a week or more. Having better long-range predictions could help people who have weather-sensitive industries plan…
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The latest Crop Production Report from the National Ag Statistics Service was released today and shows that many crop yields in the Southeast are expected to be significantly larger than last year, especially peaches, which suffered from lack of chill hours and a late frost last year. In some cases, the yields are likely to…
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If you’ve been following news about the record-setting California wildfires this summer, you may have heard that wildfires in California are increasing due to more droughts due to climate change. However, when you look at the data, the statistics are a bit more nuanced. Cliff Mass of the University of Washington has crunched the numbers,…
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Corn yields in North Carolina should be down this year after a challenging start to the year according to the Southeast Farm Press here. Wet and cold conditions in spring made planting and establishment of the corn plants tough, and dry and hot weather this summer have stressed the plants. Yields are expected to be…
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While here in the Southeast we’ve had plenty of rain this year, out west is a different story. The drought in Texas and the Southwest has caused a lot of problems for livestock producers, including water supplies drying up and lack of food. You can read more about the impacts of the drought in Drovers’…
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Would you like to know more about how the weather works? Here is a new four-week online course on the weather offered by the University of Exeter and the Royal Meteorological Society in Great Britain. In it you will learn the basics of atmospheric science with demonstrations of fronts and other concepts. There is no…