Climate and Ag in the news
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One of the reasons that you can’t just use historical trends in data over time to predict future climate is that there are often feedback loops that amplify the changes in temperature that may occur in the future. One of these feedback loops is the change in albedo (reflectance of sunlight) due to melting of…
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Climate.gov has an excellent discussion of why February set records for high temperatures across the Southeast. The short answer is that it is related to the very wavy winds that occurred during the month, which brought cold weather to the western US at the same time that we were toasting in the East. You can…
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For those of you interested in severe weather and tornadoes, you will enjoy reading this journal article about the first known tornado forecast that was ever made. J. P. Finley was a military meteorologist who was fascinated by severe weather, especially tornadoes, and spent a lot of time studying how they formed. He made his…
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Drovers’ Newletter posted an interesting story today about the impacts of severe weather on forage quality and quantity. Flooding, drought, and high humidity all played a role in affecting forage production in 2017. This is a timely topic for me since I spoke today at a short course on forage and hay in Burke County,…
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The Southeast is not the only place that has been running above normal in temperature. The Packer noted this week that strawberry production in California is running about three weeks ahead of normal due to warm weather earlier this season. They also noted that recent cooler temperatures are helping to keep the plants healthy. You…
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The National Phenology Network (NPN) provides information about the progress of physical events like budbreak, appearance of some insects and specific pests, and ice-off dates on lakes (in cold areas of the country). A recent article using their phenology map shows that this year we are running about 22 days ahead of average conditions for…
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The latest monthly and seasonal climate summary for the US was released by NOAA today. You can read about it at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/national-climate-201802. During February, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 35.4°F, 1.6°F above the 20th century average. This ranked among the warmest third of the 124-year period of record. The February precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 2.84 inches, 0.71 inch…