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Desertification in Mongolia is causing major problems with dust in China’s northern capital, Beijing. The Chinese attribute the degradation in Mongolia’s lands to overuse of herding and other agriculture and mining along with a climate that is getting warmer and drier. But the demand for what Mongolia produces by China is encouraging this overuse of…
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Earlier this week, NOAA released an album of interesting images seen from their satellites over the past year. It includes dust storms, hurricanes, atmospheric rivers, and the eruptions of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano. You can view the photos and videos at https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/news/2025-the-view-noaa-satellites.
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As we roll up to Christmas later this week, we can expect conditions that are not much like the average December 25 weather. A large area of high pressure is expected to stall in the middle of the Lower 48 states, keeping precipitation chances near zero and raising temperatures to near record-setting levels. Here in…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
Even though climatological winter has already begun as of December 1, today marks the start of astronomical winter based on the earth’s position relative to the sun. You can watch an interesting video about this year’s winter solstice at EarthSky at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTy2oDxGAuM. From here on, the days begin to get longer again and the sun…
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You may have heard stories online or on social media about the federal government’s plan to eliminate the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), located in Boulder CO this week. I don’t talk much about politics in this blog because I am mostly concerned with providing updates on scientific information, not necessarily on policy and…
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Those of you who have had to deal with the aftermath of recent tropical disasters like Hurricanes Helene, Ian, and Matthew will likely relate to the days of heat that emergency workers had to deal with during the clean-up of the storms. Some of my colleagues at the University of Georgia recently published a paper…
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Evapotranspiration data is part of the necessary water balance information that farmers need to determine irrigation needs. But it has been hard for many producers to come by, especially in states without mesonets that calculate it using their meteorological data. Here is a new online source of ET information called OpenET that helps reduce that…