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I’ve seen several interesting stories about changes in forests over time and how climate is impacted by those changes. Here are a few that I thought were particularly interesting. Nature posted a long news article back in 2014 that I just ran across about how deforestation of the tropical rainforests is changing the local climate…
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On Facebook last week a friend posted a picture of the Earth’s atmosphere, taken at sunrise from the International Space Station. In the photo, the atmosphere is shown as a thin blue line separating the sphere of the planet from the blackness of space. The image reminded me of how thin the atmosphere is compared…
Posted in: Climate science -
Climatologists around the country have been watching the development of El Nino over the last year. In 2014 we thought a strong El Nino might be starting, but the pattern never quite developed the “oomph” needed to cross the threshold into official El Nino territory. However, many of the climate impacts we saw in the…
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The Washington Post published an article this week discussing the impacts of the continuing Western drought on power production (link). Hydropower capacity at Hoover Dam has dropped by almost 25 percent since 2000. In California, where the drought is worse, hydropower has dropped 60 percent in the last four years. Generation of electricity by hydropower…
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Today marks the fourth anniversary of one of the most deadly outbreaks of tornadoes ever to hit the Southeast. It was part of a superoutbreak of tornadoes and severe weather that lasted from April 25 to 28 across the Southeast in 2011. Wikipedia has an entry which describes the full extent of the event, including…
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When severe weather hits, the National Weather Service collects the information and issues Local Storm Reports for the storm events that are called in. They are usually posted on each station’s web site. However, they are text files and it is not always easy to find a report for a specific location. There are several…
Posted in: Sources of weather and climate data -
The preliminary statistics for April are coming in and show that most of the Southeast was much warmer than usual. The HPRCC climate maps from the High Plains Regional Climate Center below show that most of the area had temperatures of 2-4 degrees above average in the Carolinas , 4-6 degrees above average in Georgia…