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Scientific American recently posted an article describing a new study that shows an increase in highly amplified jet stream patterns which can lock into place for long periods. This can lead to simultaneous droughts and associated food shortages in different parts of the world, especially important grain-producing areas. If this continues to occur, that would…
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The latest outlook for January 2020 and beyond came out earlier this week from the Climate Prediction Center. It shows that January is leaning towards wetter than normal conditions but that there is no signal in temperature. For the January through March period, the long-term trend towards warmer than normal conditions is likely to occur…
Posted in: Climate outlooks -
The North Carolina Climate Office has been posting recaps of the years in the 2010’s on Twitter and their blog in the last two weeks. Today’s version includes the full decade including a first look at 2019. You can read it at https://climate.ncsu.edu/climateblog?id=307&h=5666e5c1.
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The Earth Institute at Columbia University posted a story this week which discussed a new study about how climate change is affecting the Corn Belt in the United States. There are two main effects: the first is that warming temperatures are increasing the rates of evaporation of soil moisture, leading to more droughts. This is…
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As a scientist I am fascinated by stories about how our current earth developed over time. Here is a great story I saw today on Facebook from The Guardian describing a new fossil find of a forest that is dated as about 386 million years old. This was before modern animals and plants and the…
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The latest Drought Monitor, released today, shows that in most of the Southeast drought has been reduced or eliminated. All severe drought is now gone from Georgia and most areas have seen a decrease in moderate drought. A new area of abnormally dry conditions (D0) has appeared in eastern North Carolina, however. Rain in the…
Posted in: Drought -
The latest seasonal summary for the Southeast covering September through November 2019 was just released by the Southeast Regional Climate Center. You can read it at https://sercc.com/SoutheastRegionQuarterlyReportAutumn2019.pdf.
Posted in: Climate summaries