Climate science

  • NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has a couple of graphics showing changes in the frost-free regions of the US for March and April.  The graphics clearly show the expansion of frost-free areas in the Midwest and Great Lakes during those months, although they have more limited value for us in the Southeast.  It would have been…

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  • In previous blog posts I have noted the unprecedented decay of sea ice over the last few years and showed a graph which indicated a rapid decline of global (combined Arctic and Antarctic) sea ice this year.  Here’s an update of the chart (most recent year in red).  Note that the trend towards unbelievably low…

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  • If you were hoping for snow in last weekend’s winter storm moving through parts of the Southeast (or even if you weren’t but like weather discussions) you will be very interested in this discussion of the complex forecast surrounding the storm by Matt Daniel, UGA alum and television meteorologist at WMAZ in Macon GA.  He…

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  • Scientific American has an interesting short article today about links between the record warm Arctic temperatures and the jet streams which affect our weather patterns here in the US.  You might enjoy reading it.  The link is at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arctic-is-getting-crazy/.

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  • Deke Arndt of NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information provided the following interesting commentary about one of the graphs in the national climate summary that came out yesterday: As far as temperatures go, and especially “extreme” temperatures go, minimum temperatures (a.k.a. “Tmin”, “morning lows”, “overnight lows”, etc.) are increasing more than maximum temperatures (a.k.a. “afternoon…

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  • The latest QPF shows that just a little precipitation is expected to fall once the current system (that brought a little snow to my house in Athens!) moves out.  The next storm system headed east will be mostly north of us, with the potential to provide a little precipitation in our northern areas.  But if…

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  • Climate and lobsters

    Do you love luscious lobsters?  If so, you might be interested in this NOAA story on how the location of lobster fishing is changing over time.  This is due to changes in water temperature which affects the growth of the tasty crustaceans.  You can see the animation of where the critters have been caught over…

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