Climate and Ag in the news
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Clint Thompson of UGA has written a story featuring Dr. Bob Kemerait on the negative impacts of our warm winter on crops in the Southeast. The warmer temperatures have allowed “volunteer” peanuts or “volunteer cotton plants to regrow, increasing nematode populations and allowing crop diseases to shelter in place over the winter months. Dr. Kemerait…
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Drovers Newsletter posted a story today describing some of the continuing impacts of the Southeastern drought on cattle production. Fortunately, recent rains and cooler temperatures over the winter have improved the drought conditions significantly, but with warmer and drier conditions now occurring again, this could mean more problems for farmers down the road. You can…
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The Macon Telegraph ran a story earlier this week on the impacts of the unusually warm winter on chill hours for peaches. As I mentioned in a post a few days ago, the number of chill hours accumulated over this winter is only about half of the normal number of chill hours. Peaches need a…
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By the time you read this on Monday morning, the Oroville Dam in California, holding back the second biggest reservoir in the state, may have been washed out. As of Sunday night, there are flash flood warnings due to an imminent collapse of the auxiliary spillway for low-lying areas downstream of the dam. While the…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Climatologists know that the most likely place to first see the impacts of a warmer world is in the Arctic, where feedbacks due to snow and sea ice and their effect on the albedo make climate very sensitive to small temperature variations. Albedo is the reflectivity of the earth’s surface, and snow and ice are…
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The latest WunderBlog post updates us on the status of Arctic sea ice. The bad news is that it is at a new record low for this time of year, even though it’s winter in the Arctic now. Temperatures there this winter have been incredibly warm, which has helped lead to the low ice coverage. (See…
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According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, former President Jimmy Carter is doing a new kind of farming these days. He has recently leased a field used in the past to grow soybeans as a solar power facility. The field of solar collectors, which turn to track the sun, will be able to power approximately 215 homes. …
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news