Climate and Ag in the news
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The Georgia-Florida water wars have saturated the news here in the Southeast in recent weeks as folks waited for the US Supreme Court to decide on how water from the ACF basin would be distributed between Georgia and Florida (they sent it back to the special master, so no decision yet). But there are many…
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As you know, there is a lot of variability in climate from one year to the next and even sometimes from one month to the next. How do you know if recent extremes in temperature, precipitation or other climate variables are just a manifestation of that natural variability or if they are a sign of…
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If you are an agricultural producer or an extension agent, chances are you spend a lot of time outside, especially during the growing season. You know what it’s like to work through extreme heat and humidity, and hopefully you have included time in your schedule to cool off and hydrate. For people who work outside…
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Last week I posted an article on a new report that was released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the impacts of drought on health. Today I found their new website on the same subject. You can visit it at https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/drought/default.htm. It seems to be easy to use and well organized.
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Scientific American posted a long and interesting article recently on attempts in New Jersey to deal with more frequent storm surges like the one from Superstorm Sandy as well as rises in sea level tied to a warming ocean. One method for coping is to raise house elevations by putting them on stilts, but often…
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While conditions in the Southeast have been quite moderate compared to other parts of the United States, heat-related impacts are taking a toll in other parts of the globe. Here are a few stories in the past week. AgWeb reported that a heat wave in Europe is ruining the crops there. Many parts of Europe…
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Since the 1960s, temperatures across the Southeast and the entire world have been increasing, although there is a lot of year-to-year variability which is the bane of farmers everywhere. For the Southeast, a temperature increase of 1 degree F translates into a roughly one-week increase in the length of the growing season based on some…