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Two new interactive viewers from NOAA’s Coastal Services Center are available online and provide a detailed look at coastal areas across the US. The C-CAP viewer allows you to look at changes in land use from 1996 to 2010 in many areas of the Southeast, although only counties relatively near the coast are included. You…
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The latest 7-day outlook for rainfall issued today shows most of the Southeast in below normal rainfall for the next week. This is a continuation of the pattern that has been persisting across the region for the last several weeks and does not bode well for reduction of dry conditions across the area. The only…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
That was the headline this morning on a Yahoo News story about the California drought. A new study coming out in the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Climate indicates that the possibility of a decade-long drought in the Southwest could be as high as 90 percent, and there is even a 50 percent probability of…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
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