Climate science
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If you follow national climate news, you have probably seen a lot of splashy information on the 5th National Climate Assessment, which was released Tuesday morning to a lot of acclaim and a huge roll-out of information about the changing climate in the United States. I was one of the authors of the Southeast chapter,…
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There are many sayings in folklore about how to predict the upcoming winter based on phenological observations of persimmon seeds, the coats of animals, and when birds fly south. Observations of woolly bear caterpillars and their comparative amounts of brown and black stripes is one that I get asked about from time to time. Here…
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If you watch the weather forecasts carefully, either for regular weather or for tropical storms, you probably already know that meteorologists use multiple models to help make their predictions of what the weather is likely to be and how storm systems will move across an area. Forbes has a great description of why forecasters use…
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You might expect that in an El Nino winter, the chance of freezing nights would go up, since El Nino winters are generally cooler than average. I decided to test that by looking at the number of nights that the minimum temperature got below 32 F and seeing if years with El Nino had more…
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Climate prediction is a combination of looking at patterns that historically have affected our region in the past (analogies with previous events) and what computer models are saying about what we can expect this year based on large-scale weather patterns and how they are expected to evolve over time using mathematical formulas and current observations.…
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When I talk about impacts of El Nino in the Southeast, I often mention that the jet stream moves south to a position that is usually located across southern AL and GA and northern FL. The jet stream pushes along the winter storm systems that bring rain (and occasionally snow) to the region. Cloud cover…
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Over the weekend we passed from astronomical summer to fall as the sun moved across the plane of the earth’s equator. Days just get shorter from now until the winter solstice in December. I can certainly tell the change, and I bet you can too. You can learn more about the fall equinox at EarthSky…
Posted in: Climate science