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Kansas AgLand posted a story today about the record wheat yields they are harvesting in parts of the Plains. Perfect rainfall and temperature conditions have combined to fill the bins with amazing amounts of wheat across a wide area. Even the less desirable strains in dryland fields are yielding excellent results. Unfortunately, the good yields…
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Haaretz.com posted a story this week describing the severe drought which has affected northern parts of Israel, resulting in nearly record low levels on the Sea of Galilee. The low amounts of precipitation over the last three years have dropped the lake levels precipitously, and if it drops another five feet they will have to…
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I’ve seen a number of articles in the last few days describing impacts of groundwater withdrawals on infrastructure and agriculture. Here are two that struck me. Sputnik News reports that the Chinese city of Beijing is sinking at the rate of 11 cm (over 4 inches) per year due to heavy withdrawals of groundwater. The…
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Summer temperatures for the United States as a whole are getting warmer based on instrumental records kept by NOAA as well as other groups. In some places in the north, that is not all bad. However, in places that are already warm, hotter temperatures could cause economic losses from increased use of air conditioning, reduced…
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The Weather Channel has an interesting story about how many deaths are caused by different types of weather. While we think of tornados, hurricanes and floods as the most dangerous weather, it turns out that heat is the biggest killer of all. You can watch a video on the story and read about it at https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/weather-event-fatalities-heat.
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Even though some areas set record high temperatures for the day on Saturday, it is still pretty early for the hottest day of the year. The Weather Channel has a nice discussion of NOAA’s map of when the hottest day of the year occurs at https://weather.com/science/news/warmest-day-year-map-noaa-ncdc-20140626. EarthSky also discusses why the solstice is not the hottest…
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Stockholm University noted some recent research by a team of scientists there on the brightness of high-level clouds affected by airplane exhaust. Cloud brightness is important for climate because it helps control how much sunlight (and thus energy) reaches the surface of the earth. Brighter clouds–more reflection of sunlight back to space–less energy at the…