Climate and Ag in the news
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A recent study of perceptions of climate change (published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) shows that there are significant differences between attitudes of scientists and agricultural producers on the causes of climate change. Over 90 percent of scientists are sure that climate change is occurring and more than 50 percent attribute it…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Soil quality is a key factor in plant productivity in agriculture. Every good farmer tries to preserve or improve their soil to assure healthy crops and good yields in the future. In fact, 2015 will be the International Year of Soils and December 5 of this year World Soil Day. I’ve run across several articles…
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People have had weather folklore going back to at least the Bible (remember “Red sky at night?”). Here are a couple of stories about Indian summer and other weather sayings. Indian summer article from TheEagle.com Weather, as told by nature from DiscoverNatureNotes.com Farmers are particularly good at phenology, the study of weather and climate by…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
In the past few weeks there have been many forecasts for the coming winter made online. Most are from bloggers with limited meteorological or climatological training, and should be taken with a large grain of salt. Others, from places like the Farmers’ Almanac, are mysteriously produced and vaguely worded so that they can claim they…
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In the next week you will hear a lot about the terms “jet stream” and “polar vortex” if you have not already. What are these phenomena? A couple of easy to understand references you can use: AthensGAWeather has a link to a website at the bottom of the page with a simple 2-minute explanation of…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
EarthSky has an interesting article posted about changes in Bhutan’s agriculture, particularly in their yak herding, due to the retreat of glaciers in the region. Glaciers retreat from a combination of warming temperatures and decreases in snowfall over time. The loss of glacier ice has made it more difficult for herders to move around the…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
There has been a tremendous amount of hype the last few days about the coming cold outbreak that will be affecting most of the eastern 2/3 of the United States. Some bloggers and pundits have talked about “bombogenesis” and the return of the “polar vortex” and unprecedented cold temperatures. Dr. Michio Kaku, the so-called “science…