Climate science
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One of the consequences of the rainy conditions in the central US this year has been exceptional runoff of fertilizer and other agricultural chemicals as well as animal waste, most of which make their way down the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico. These chemicals help lead to the development of a “dead zone”…
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Even though this time of year has the longest day, for most parts of the country it is not the hottest day. Why not? The short answer is thermal lag, which means that it takes a while for things to heat up (especially water), so temperatures will continue to rise for several weeks. Although with…
Posted in: Climate science -
It’s not the heat, it’s the (lack of) humidity. Dr. Jeff Masters posted an interesting article in Weather Underground today discussing a potential new record low humidity record for the world, set in Iran. However, there is another contender for the record from Needles CA in May 2014, with a temperature of 102 F and…
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NASA’s ClimateBits has an excellent short video on what an urban heat island is. You can watch it below from YouTube. The urban heat island can be seen in cities as small as Athens GA (population about 115,000) and I think you could even see effects in smaller cities with distinct urban centers. In Athens…
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If you’ve been following the travel news the last few days, as I have, you might have noticed that the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport has had to cancel some flights because of record-setting high temperatures there this week. Newser.com has a short article about it here. If you’re interested in the science behind why planes…
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If you are in the Central Time Zone or farther west, the summer solstice is today. But if you are in the Eastern Time Zone, it’s technically tomorrow because the solstice occurs this year at 12:24 am EDT on June 21 which is the same as 11:24 pm CDT on June 20. Those time zones!…
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A recent study by NASA scientists shows that climatologists may be underestimating the amount of rain that might fall in the future because of underestimates in the loss of high-level clouds in the tropics. You might think that less clouds means less rain, not more, but because these high clouds can change the energy balance…