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The Southeast Farm Press had a short article this week which said that many South Carolina watermelon farmers are reporting crops that are twice their usual size this year. Watermelons cover 8,000 acres of the state and are produced in every county, although they are concentrated in the Low Country and the Sand Hills region. …
Posted in: Fruit -
Most climatologists attribute the discovery of the greenhouse effect caused by absorption of terrestrial energy by carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” to Irish physicist John Tyndall in 1859 and the following years. According to a story in Climate Change News, “A recently digitized copy of The American Journal of Science and Arts suggests a woman…
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Did you know that one of the world’s major repositories of climate data is located here in the Southeast in Asheville NC? Of course you did, if you read this blog regularly. The two other main ones are in Hamburg, Germany, and Obninsk, Russia, but there are several other smaller ones as well. Here’s a…
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With just a couple of days to go in the month, the ACIS maps from the High Plains Regional Climate Center show that precipitation was variable across the Southeast but that most areas have experienced above normal temperatures. A major contribution to the warm temperatures was nighttime high temperatures. You can see maps for other…
Posted in: Climate summaries -
While stories about fireflies are not directly related to climate or agriculture, to me they are the quintessential sign of summer. You might enjoy this story from EarthSky on why fireflies light up. Read it at https://earthsky.org/earth/bugs-firefly-light.
Posted in: Climate and Ag in the news -
Channel News Asia has an eye-opening story about how a combination of drought and mismanagement of water supplies has caused a major river in South India to almost dry up. This is causing economic devastation and hardship to farmers growing rice in the area. You can read about how centralized irrigation systems have contributed to…
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With just a few weeks of summer to go, you are probably thinking about hitting the beach one last time. If you need some reading material to go with your sun and fun, here is a list of books in the climate fiction genre (“cli-fi”) that are set in future climate conditions that you might…