Western South Dakota is one of those classic drought cases. It was extraordinarily wet there during the 1990s, well above the long term mean. Of the 10 wettest years in a century of records in northwest South Dakota, four came during the 1990s. An astonishing six years during the 1990s were greater than one standard …
Drought-induced famine is largely a political rather than climatological disaster, as this account by Teshome Erkineh of response to drought conditions in Ethiopia demonstrates. It happens when societies, for whatever reason, fail to cope with climate variability. A million people died in 1983-84 because of drought. In 2003, under what was a more severe drought …
Marco Tedesco at the University of Maryland suggests a new technique for remote sensing of snowmelt atop the Greenland ice sheet. When he uses it, he reports: Long-term results show that snowmelt extent has been increasing at a rate of ?40,000 Km2 per year for the past 14 years. Snowmelt detection over the Greenland ice …
We subsidize ethanol so we can use it instead of gasoline in our cars. The price of corn rises. Poor folk in Mexico can’t afford their staple food: Mexico is in the grip of the worst tortilla crisis in its modern history. Dramatically rising international corn prices, spurred by demand for the grain-based fuel ethanol, …
Re my post earlier today about my snowy, muddy backyard, it’s worth pointing out that Albuquerque’s only received a total of 0.05 inch of precip since Jan. 1 at the airport, (0.25 at my house), well below normal for the month. It’s a late December storm that left things so muddy.
David Roberts, who has gotten a lot of leftie blogosphere traction with his dirty hippie post, is at it again. Here’s David, describing the point he made on a conservative talk show (“one of the B-list Limbaughs”) yesterday: The IPCC is one of the most rigorous scientific processes ever developed, and its new report pegs …
One of the difficulties in thinking about drought conditions is the tendency to look out your window. Out mine, there’s a nice little blanket of snow, and I’ve got to kick snow or mud off my feet when I come in out of the backyard. But the West is a big and exquisitely interconnected place, …
Quiet MorningOriginally uploaded by heinemanfleck. It’s quiet Saturday morning in Albuquerque, the sort of quiet you get when a light blanket of snow dampens the sound and keeps everyone inside, including the dogs. We’re going to be in trouble today when the mailman comes. There’ll be no dogs out to protect us. music: Django (the …
It is rare that my two journalistic specialties, climate and the blinding tools of nuclear Armageddon, converge as they have today in Chicago. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved up the hands on its famed Doomsday Clock – not just because of those pesky Norks with the nuclear testing and the plutonium and …
Marty Hoerling’s discussion of western U.S. drought in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report model runs (which I wrote about last fall) is out: Our study reveals that a sustained change in moisture conditions is unfolding within the broad range of natural variations. The Southwest is likely past the peak water experienced in the 20th century …