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The rain in the Southeast this week has cut down the amount of pollen in the air by quite a bit this week. Trees are leafing out, which means that the pollen-bearing flowers are dropping off. But there are plenty of other sources of pollen still to come. You can see a list of common…
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One of the consequences of the continuing drought in California has been the unprecedented string of extremely high temperatures that have occurred in the last few years. Normally a portion of the sun’s energy that hits the earth goes to evaporating water from the surface, either from soils or water bodies or indirectly through evapotranspiration…
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Allison Floyd of Growing Georgia had an article this week discussing the increasing interest in Southern pecans due to the California drought. As we’ve discussed previously in this blog, California is one of the main sources of nuts in the US (and the world), but the nut orchards require a lot of water to maintain…
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Most of the stories I’ve published lately have dealt with the drought in California. And it’s no wonder, since California is the primary region for a lot of agriculture in the US. But other areas of the west are also suffering from the extended drought in the region. Here are a couple of stories about…
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The rain this week may prevent peanut growers from getting out into their fields to start planting. Arguably, it’s a little early this year since 4-inch soil temperatures are only around 70 and are unlikely to warm up much under all the cloudiness and rain we are going to see for the next few days.…
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The Pacific Decadal oscillation, or PDO, is a long-term oscillation in Pacific Ocean temperatures. It is one of several known swings in ocean temperature between two phases, a “cold” phase and a “warm” phase. The most well-known natural oscillation like this is the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, which changes phase every 3-5 years. The PDO is…
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Have humans already changed the climate of earth? As Cliff Mass of the University of Washington describes in his blog this week, “The answer is emphatically yes.” But the changes are due to much more than just the addition of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Our changes also have to do with…