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Volcanologists and climatologists are watching the current eruption of Mount Tavurvur in Papua New Guinea closely to see how long and intense the current eruption lasts. The volcano erupted so strongly on Friday that Qantas airline had to reroute flights between Sydney and Tokyo as well as Sydney and Shanghai to avoid the clouds of…
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The UN General Assembly recently decided to designate 2015 as the International Year of Soils to recognize the importance of soils for food security as well as ecosystem functions. Agricultural producers recognize the importance of good soil management to maintaining their farms’ economic viability and health. You can read more about the UN declaration here.…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
If you work outdoors in summer, you know that air quality can be a concern. High ozone levels near the surface (as opposed to the upper-level ozone which protects us from ultraviolet rays) are caused by interactions of sunlight and air pollution, particularly from emissions from automobiles but also to some extent from agriculture and…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Climate Central has a new graphing tool which shows how this summer compares to temperatures in previous summers. There are just a few cities in the Southeast but it is fun and interesting to see how temperatures varied across the US. You can access the tool at https://www.climatecentral.org/news/us-summer-temperatures-comparison-17942. (Note that I had trouble visualizing the…
Posted in: Tools for climate and agriculture -
If you’ve been following this blog, you have no doubt noticed that drought is the number one subject that comes up in blog postings. It is no wonder: farmers are more interested in drought than in any other topic of weather and climate, because it is so detrimental to their bottom line. And recent dry…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
The blog from the State Climate Office of North Carolina posted a new story today about some summer research done on the relationship between total net primary productivity (TNPP) of pines and drought indices. The research explored statistical correlations between various drought indices like the Palmer Drought Severity Index and the Standardized Precipitation Index and…
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As expected, the latest Drought Monitor has expanded the area of severe drought in Georgia under the dry conditions we have had for the last week. The coverage of D2 drought expanded from 3% to over 8% and now covers a significant portion of southwest and south central Georgia. The latest map and statistics are…