Climate science
-
In the Southeast, we know that El Nino and La Nina greatly affect our climate conditions, especially in the winter months when farmers are preparing for the next growing season. One of the important questions about the changing climate is whether or not the frequency and intensity of El Nino and La Nina (collectively called…
-
If you have been watching the news lately, you will have heard the term “atmospheric river” describing the heavy storms that are inundating California this week. In spite of what you might think, this term describes an official meteorological phenomenon. They often happen in California because of its position just east of a large, warm…
-
As part of our work on the 5th National Climate Assessment, each chapter team hosted a webinar discussing the key messages of the chapter and highlighting some of the graphics from the chapter and how they were developed. You can find the ones for the Southeast (#7) and agriculture (#17) on the website playlist at…
-
As a climatologist, I am frequently told by people skeptical about climate change that “the climate is always changing.” Of course, climatologists know this because we were the ones that discovered those changes in the first place with the collaboration of paleobotanists, chemists, geologists and other scientists. We also know that the climate of the…
Posted in: Climate science -
It’s going to be very cold in the Southeast for the next few days. Climatologists are already bracing themselves for people to say “I could use a little global warming about now.” Besides demonstrating that they don’t understand the differences between weather and climate, it shows a disdain for the science behind predictions of how…
Posted in: Climate science -
Many areas of the Southeast received very heavy rain in the storm earlier this week. In Georgia, I have heard reports of up to 7 inches or even more in a few isolated locations. Since there is not much growing right now, that heavy rain has likely caused problems on some farm fields with erosion…
-
Over the last few weeks I have seen a lot of discussion about the change in the weather pattern that has occurred due to the weakening of the polar vortex over the North Pole. There is a lot of misinformation about what the polar vortex is and how it affects weather and climate in the…