Heat, drought taking a toll on Wisconsin crops. With each day of scorching heat and little rain, the odds of reaping a bountiful vegetable harvest dwindle for Wisconsin farmers such as Chuck Frase and Terry Vlossak. As the owners of Full Harvest Farm in Hartford, they have used miles of "drip tape" - plastic tubing that drips water onto plants - to irrigate organic vegetables. But even that hasn't kept up with the hot, dry weather. Certain plants that aren't watered as much have turned brown on their edges and are at risk of dying. The rest of the crops are growing slowly. "Our rain dances have been ineffectual. We will have to work on our technique," Full Harvest Farm wrote in a letter to its community-supported agriculture customers.
Full Harvest, and other farms like it, sell shares of their crops to urban customers who get fresh fruits and vegetables as they become available. "We roll the dice in terms of what we do," Frase said. The second request was for maple syrup operations that also had a poor season. Crops in poor shape. Here's what climate change looks like. In case you're curious as to just what climate change is going to look like when it really gets cranked up in a few years, here's a sneak preview: These two maps are from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center. This first one shows the location of each of the 129 daily low temperature records set or tied in the contiguous U.S. in January (the blank circles indicate where a previous record was tied; the circles with an 'X' inside are where a record was broken): ...and this one shows the location of each of the 3,078 daily high temperature records set or tied in the contiguous U.S. in January: There are a few small locations lacking in dots, as you can see--near the Great Salt Lake, southeastern Colorado, northern Illinois, upstate New York, much of Maine--but for the most part, the nation was pretty well saturated with a record number of record high temperatures in January. 3,078 highs, 129 lows.
Now, of course a few warm months aren't by themselves "evidence" of anything. Want to see more? HIPPO Reveals Climate Surprises. A major pollution-mapping program that ends September 9 has turned up startling trends in climate-warming gases and soot. The data it collected over the past five years from a National Science Foundation aircraft show the tropics periodically belch huge plumes of nitrous oxide — a potent greenhouse gas — into the upper atmosphere. Arctic measurements show that the recent record summer retreats of ice cover have allowed seas there to exhale unexpected amounts of methane, another potent greenhouse gas.
POLLUTANT SNIFFER This aircraft sampled air at different altitudes along paths that ran from pole to pole looking for climate-altering pollutants. ©UCAR/Carlye Calvin LITTLE ICE, LOTS OF METHANE HIPPO ties unexpected release of methane to loss of summer Arctic sea-ice cover (and 2011 may be record loss, Wofsy says). iStockPhoto Then there’s soot. So airborne observations have been repeatedly compared to what computer models predict. The phenomenon also appears very widespread. Warnings for Delaware, Pennsylvania. Okla. City Sets Record for Days at or Above 100. EcoAlert: First Complete Map of Antarctic Ice Flow Helps Track Rising Sea-Levels. In a bid to track future sea-level increases from climate change, researchers at NASA have created the first complete map of the speed and direction of ice flow in Antarctica, derived from radar interferometric data. The researcher's team, with the help of NASA technology, carefully joined the shape and velocity of glacial formations. The map includes Eastern Antarctica - an area that, while comprising 77 percent of the continent, was uncharted so far.
NASA-funded researchers at the University of California (UC), Irvine, used billions of high-resolution radar data points of the continent's ice flows provided by European, Japanese and Canadian satellites between 2007 and 2009 to extract the clouds, solar glare and land features covering the glaciers. The maps shows glaciers flowing thousands of miles from the continent's deep interior to its shore. "This is like seeing a map of all the oceans' currents for the first time.
Settled Science - Humans are Raising CO2 Levels. Posted on 20 August 2011 by dana1981, MarkR As a result of Murry Salby's fundamentally flawed arguments that the increase in atmospheric CO2 is a consequence of the increase in temperature, rather than vice-versa, a number of prominent climate "skeptics" have been taking up this argument (i.e. Watts, Curry, Bolt, Jo Nova). In his post on the subject, Watts wrote "I’m pretty sure Australian bloggers John Cook at Skeptical Science and Tim Lambert at Deltoid are having conniption fits right about now.
" Indeed, we here at Skeptical Science have found the entire hubub over Salby's claims by those who claim to be serious climate skeptics rather frustrating. Although we've addressed Salby's arguments in a few recent posts already (see here and here and here), we previously had not created a comprehensive rebuttal to the myth that the atmospheric CO2 increase is natural (though RealClimate has a good one, from which we borrowed some of the discussion on carbon isotopic signatures).
Limiting Greenhouse Gases Beyond CO2 May Help Stop Climate Change. Limiting carbon dioxide emissions may not be the only way to fight climate change, according to the results of a new study. In a paper published this week in Nature, scientists from NOAA found that in addition to carbon dioxide, “other greenhouse gases measurably contribute to the problem,” reports Science Daily. According to NOAA scientists Stephen Montzka, Ed Dlugokencky and James Butler, cutting emissions of these other gases could help to reduce atmospheric warming in the short term.
Gases like methane trap heat just like carbon dioxide, but don't remain in the atmosphere for as long, LiveScience explains. The study reports that by limiting emissions of methane, along with nitrous oxide and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, humans may be able to make a difference relatively quickly. If methane emissions were cut immediately, results could be seen within a decade, Butler says. Not everyone is ready to fight climate change. Texas And Oklahoma Drought Forces Ranchers To Cut Herds (PHOTOS) McALLEN, Texas (AP) -- Texas cattle rancher Charles Kothman is down to six calves and their mothers after selling off 80 animals in recent months. The drought that has baked pastures and dried ponds has ranchers in Texas and Oklahoma – the nation's top two beef producers – culling their herds. Some have sold off all their cattle, but Kothman is hanging on and hoping for rain.
"I may get to the point that I say `no' and take them over to the sale barn," said Kothman, whose ranch is about 70 miles south of San Angelo. Some ranchers say they may sell out and get back into the business down the road. Cattle ranchers either have to sell cattle during droughts or buy feed because their barren pastures can't sustain the animals. Most cows sold are being sent to slaughter. "Whether you raise them or buy them it's going to be much more expensive to rebuild your herd," said David Anderson, a livestock economist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. "The cattle ain't here no more," he added. Climate Change Threatens Health. Ehrlichia: New Tick Infection May Be Linked To Environmental Change. If the rising risks of Lyme disease, Anaplasmosis or Babesiosis weren't reasons enough to take extra precautions while outdoors this summer -- and to do a thorough tick check before going back inside -- researchers have now identified yet another unpleasant tick-transmitted disease.
A still unnamed, tick-borne bacterium appears to have transmitted ehrlichiosis to at least 25 people in Wisconsin and Minnesota, with more cases likely unaccounted for due to the flu-like symptoms common among other diseases that pass through ticks, according to a new paper published on Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The discovery builds on evidence of the increasing number of infectious diseases spread from wildlife to humans, researchers say. Bats are currently transmitting the deadly Hendra virus among horses and humans in Australia while rodents scatter hantavirus across the U.S. -- most recently taking lives in New Mexico and Washington State. Dr. The Reality of Global Climate Change is Upon Us.
Evidence for climate change is now undeniable – scientists. By Joe Romm on July 25, 2011 at 10:35 am "Evidence for climate change is now undeniable – scientists" Ah, New Zealand, home of kiwis, the filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and blunt climate science reporting: Evidence for climate change is now undeniable – scientistsDisastrous floods, heatwaves, storms and droughts are becoming more frequent because of climate change, and will continue to do so.Scientists say the world can no longer ignore the link between climate change and extreme weather events, and they are urging countries to face up to the growing risks ahead.New Zealander Kevin Trenberth [of] the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, said events of the past 18 months had been extraordinary. “It’s as clear a warning as we’re going to get about prospects for the future.”Last year was the warmest on record and that warming was directly related to increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, he said.
Here’s more from Trenberth: Bart Laws So, should we be worried? The new abnormal: look who’s talking about climate and weird weather. Photo: Chris Toombes Cross-posted from Sightline Daily. This is part two in the series “Talking Weather and Climate.” Read part one. If you’re like me, you’ve been mentally cataloging a bunch of weather events that have seemed weird and extreme, wondering to yourself: Is this normal?
Prompted by those feelings, and spurred on by a nascent conversation about the connections between extreme weather and climate change, I started asking the question: Just how should climate change communicators be talking about the weather? One possible answer came from national climate action guru Bill McKibben. Sidestepping (stomping on?) My initial response: Yes! Still, there was inevitable backlash. Was it too snarky? Despite the backlash — or perhaps because it prompted extreme reactions — I’m thinking that McKibben’s approach probably worked best to fire up tried and true climate activists — and it did get a charge out of the science denial set as well.
Who else is talking about it?