Climate science
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If you like to look at historical paintings, you may notice that they often provide information about the local weather or climate, especially if they are landscape paintings. Art historians have noticed that portrayals of nature have changed over time in response to the changing climate. For example, a painting of a glacier may reveal…
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As a meteorologist I often roll my eyes when I hear comments about weather models always being wrong. In fact, most of them are very good, but even the best aren’t perfect, because there are inherent errors in input data, simplifications of atmospheric processes like precipitation formation which happen on small scales, computing errors due…
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Two new research studies on tropical cyclones (the generic name for hurricanes across the world) shows that hurricanes are getting stronger over time and are also forming farther from the equator, putting new populations at risk. These studies, both based on satellite observations, show that climate change is having an impact on the formation and…
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I ran across an article this week in the Metropolitan Planning Council newsletter out of Chicago which discussed how rainstorms are now producing more rain than they have in the past. The article is here. They talk about how 100-year rain events now have more rain than in the past in their area. For example,…
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A new study published this week shows that the number of days with extremely high heat and humidity is increasing globally as the earth’s temperature warms. This means that there are parts of the earth that will be very inhospitable to human life, especially in areas where there is no air conditioning. The human survivability…
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Here is a good basic article on natural and human causes of climate change from The Conversation. This article focuses on the role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, although of course there are other causes too, such as land use changes, changes in albedo from sea and land ice, and solar radiation changes. You…
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As the global temperatures have been rising, the ranges in which different crops can grow have also changed. Corn and soybeans are two of the crops that are spreading north into areas where they did not previously grow. In the case of corn, increases in precipitation and humidity may also be allowing it to grow…