Climate and Ag in the news
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For farmers in India, the rains from the monsoon can make or break their crops for the year. This seasonal onset of the rainy season varies from one place to another and is linked to land-ocean temperature differences between the Indian Ocean and the Indian subcontinent. It is also intimately linked to the El Niño…
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The latest Drought Monitor shows an significant expansion of severe drought in both Alabama and Georgia. Dry conditions early in June and a miss by Tropical Storm Colin coupled with very warm temperatures has allowed severe drought to grow, expanding south from the northern portions of those states into the Birmingham and Atlanta areas. Hot…
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In a warmer climate with a longer growing season, climatologists have generally considered that the longer frost-free season will lead to an increase in insect pests that affect both crops and livestock. I was interested to see an article posted today in Phys.org describing the impacts that a warming climate may have on insect pests,…
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A new website which collects information on wildfire in the Southeast is now available at https://southernwildfire.net/. This website collects information on wildfire research geared towards Southeastern wildfires as well as shares success stories on dealing with forest fires. It includes information on SouthWRAP, the Southern Wildfire Risk Assessment online mapping tool, an evaluation tool for assessing your…
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Today’s WunderBlog lists two new resources for understanding changes in climate over time. The first is a new website called “Climate Signals” which explores connections between extreme events and climate change. The second is a new book which goes into detail about climate models and how they are used to study changes in climate over…
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The Capital Weather Gang has posted a great story about the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1816, 200 years ago this summer. The sulfuric acid emissions from this eruption helped contribute to some of the coldest temperatures we have seen in the Northern Hemisphere in modern times, due to the reflection of sunlight…
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In my previous post I discussed the impacts of high heat on outdoor workers. Another source of stress is poor air quality, which can be either from high particulate levels or from corrosive ground-level ozone. Both of these can put stress on breathing in vulnerable populations. You can get air quality information from the Environmental…