May 2021

[bluewave]

6 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Yeah bad timing for the upcoming holiday. Monday itself could be salvaged but a good chunk of the weekend looks cool, damp. 

Even worse if you're heading down the shore.

The bulk of the rain on the 12z Euro is Friday into Friday night. Some lingering showers on Saturday. But the weekend looks cool with plenty of easterly flow. This past weekend when we reached the mid 90s will turn out to have been the best beach weekend of May. 

 

 

 

 

[SnowGoose69]

9 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The bulk of the rain on the 12z Euro is Friday into Friday night. Some lingering showers on Saturday. But the weekend looks cool with plenty of easterly flow. This past weekend when we reached the mid 90s will turn out to have been the best beach weekend of May. 

 

 

 

 

Yeah I’m fairly confident at this stage that the 12Z Euro is close to the eventual evolution though I don’t buy the come back or secondary feature late Saturday.  The pattern screams suppressed and done to me after the first wave.  Some models also show the funky occlusion type feature like the GFS but again doesn’t make a ton of sense to me.   

[Brian5671]

6 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Yeah bad timing for the upcoming holiday. Monday itself could be salvaged but a good chunk of the weekend looks cool, damp. 

Even worse if you're heading down the shore.

yeah I would never pay good $$ to go away Memorial day in the northeast, still spring really (and subject to cloudy 60 degree weather or worse)

[LibertyBell]

6 hours ago, SnoSki14 said:

Yeah bad timing for the upcoming holiday. Monday itself could be salvaged but a good chunk of the weekend looks cool, damp. 

Even worse if you're heading down the shore.

they should've just moved Memorial Day weekend to the weekend we just had honestly.  Anyone who wanted to take off should have done it then and forget about next weekend.

 

[LibertyBell]

9 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

yeah I would never pay good $$ to go away Memorial day in the northeast, still spring really (and subject to cloudy 60 degree weather or worse)

As far as I'm concerned Memorial Day weekend was the weekend we just had.  I took a vacation and it was awesome.  Next weekend means nothing to me

 

[LibertyBell]

3 hours ago, dWave said:

For a good chunk of spring CPK isnt fully leafed out yet, so the temp disparity doesn't show as much yet compared to nearby urban stations. Also in spring the Park is a little more protected from the frequent cool E/NE  flow, keeping LGA cooler on some days. As that influence gets weaker later on, back door fronts less common, and the vegetation gets lush the Park's cool bias starts on cue.

I wish I could find the article, but the NWS has already acknowledged this phenomenon is legitimate 10 yrs ago or so. They basically just accept it as is for a few reasons...

1. Technically KNYC is accurate for what it is, a dense semi forested park, and its readings accuratly reflect that. (Kinda putting the onus on the consumer to recognize a park for what it is vs an urbanized street and analyze accordingly.)

2. Its historical significance. Its one of the longest running climate stations, and in America's biggest city. They dont want to mess with it. So its just grandfathered in to the climate data despite falling short of their own offical standards.

3. There are plenty of offical weather stations around it to reflect the local urban climate. (Kind of putting it at the medias feet to use all available data to portray an accurate picture to the public.) In fact the closest offical reporting station for many/most NYC residents isnt KNYC, but LGA or JFK...all of Queens, the BX and portions of BK would fall into that.

The ASOS is not that far from Museum of Natural History. Its fenced in, surrounded by trees, last I saw some now hang over the top as well. In wetter patterns weeds and shrubs will be overgrown near-by too. The trees do help shield it from the public which the NWS probably likes.

It's why the media needs to be lobbied to stop using NYC as an observation site.  It should just be considered a second order station and be done with it.  All first order stations should only be airports.

NYC doesn't comply to the NWS own standards for siting, so as far as I'm concerned, no observations from there can be considered to be accurate or usable.  I'm perfectly fine with data only going back to 1950, that's when the modern era began anyway.

 

The former climate back in the 1800s matters about as much as the climate on Mars.

[Juliancolton]

3 hours ago, lee59 said:

As long as were on a discussion involving  the NWS,  does anyone know why the NHC now includes subtropical storms as named tropical storms?

The NHC has been naming subtropical systems for almost 20 years. I'm not sure of the exact rationale, but in theory, STCs can pose many of the same hazards as TCs.

[LibertyBell]

7 hours ago, psv88 said:

Break it down...why would an already densely forested park get more moist at a faster rate than non forested areas? If anything the opposite should be true. For example, which area gets more humid (from a relative standpoint) from a moist flow, a tropical rain forest or a desert? The desert clearly, because it was already dry....so the park shouldn’t see moderating temps more than any other areas. Rather, because it is more moist already, the rate of change should be slower, not faster, in other areas...

I'm curious as to how this compares to higher evapotranspiration rates in the midwest, where higher heat indices are being blamed on monocultural farming.

 

[LoboLeader1]

Need a good rain to knock down this damn pollen in the air, makes your life miserable. I hate this time of year.

[bluewave]

25 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

I'm curious as to how this compares to higher evapotranspiration rates in the midwest, where higher heat indices are being blamed on monocultural farming.

 

It would be interesting to see how many more 100° days we would have had without the big increase in agriculture in those areas.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/america-s-corn-belt-making-its-own-weather

The United States’s Corn Belt is making its own weather

By Kimberly HickokFeb. 16, 2018 , 12:05 PM

The Great Plains of the central United States—the Corn Belt—is one of the most fertile regions on Earth, producing more than 10 billion bushels of corn each year. It’s also home to some mysterious weather: Whereas the rest of the world has warmed, the region’s summer temperatures have dropped as much as a full degree Celsius, and rainfall has increased up to 35%, the largest spike anywhere in the world. The culprit, according to a new study, isn’t greenhouse gas emissions or sea surface temperature—it’s the corn itself.

This is the first time anyone has examined regional climate change in the central United States by directly comparing the influence of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, says Nathan Mueller, an earth systems scientist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who was not involved with this study. It’s important to understand how agricultural activity can have “surprisingly strong” impacts on climate change, he says.

The Corn Belt stretches from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio. The amount of corn harvested in this region annually has increased by 400% since 1950, from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. Iowa leads the country for the most corn produced per state.

 

Get more great content like this delivered right to you!To see whether this increase in crops has influenced the region’s unusual weather, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge used computers to model five different 30-year climate simulations, based on data from 1982 to 2011. First, they compared simulations with high levels of intense agriculture to control simulations with no agricultural influence. Unlike the real-life climate changes, the control simulations showed no change in temperature or rainfall. But 62% of the simulations with intense agriculture resulted in temperature and rainfall changes that mirror the observed changes, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

Map of the central United States, showing changes in rainfall during the last third of the 20th century. Areas of increased rainfall are shown in green, with darker colors representing a greater increase.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

The team then compared its results to historical global simulations from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international program for the coordination of global climate research sponsored by the International Council for Science, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. WCRP’s models take into account greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and humanmade influences, but do not consider agricultural land use. When researchers ran the numbers for the Corn Belt, the global models fell short of reality: They predicted both temperature and humidity to increase slightly, and rainfall to increase by up to 4%—none of which matches the observed changes.

Other climate simulations that use sea surface temperature variation didn’t match observed changes, either. Those simulations matched historical data until 1970; after that, the simulations predicted temperatures to keep increasing, rather than decreasing as they did in reality. This is a strong indication that agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature, caused the regional changes in climate during the last third of the 20th century, the researchers say.

“The [influence] of agriculture intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ross Alter, lead author of the study and now a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Alter says, heavy agriculture likely counteracted rising temperatures regionally that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One other place that shows a similar drop in temperatures, he notes, is eastern China, where intensive agriculture is widespread.

But how does agriculture cause increased rainfall and decreased temperatures? The team suspects it has to do with photosynthesis, which leads to more water vapor in the air. When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbon dioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape. This increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. The cycle may continue as that rainwater eventually moves back into the atmosphere and causes more rainfall downwind from the original agricultural area.

Rong Fu, a climate scientist at UC Los Angeles, agrees with the team’s assessment. She also thinks that though human influence might be “greater than we realize,” this regional climate change is probably caused by many factors, including increased irrigation in the region.

“This squares with a lot of other evidence,” says Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University, who calls the new study convincing. But he warns that such benefits may not last if greenhouse gas emissions eventually overpower the mitigating effect of agriculture.

Alter agrees, and says it’s unlikely that the large increases in U.S. crop production during the 20th century will continue. Other scientists have voiced concern that agricultural production could soon be reaching its limit in many parts of the world. 

“Food production is arguably what we’re more concerned about with climate change,” Mueller says. And understanding how agriculture and climate will continue to affect one another is crucial for developing projections for both climate and agricultural yields. “It’s not just greenhouse gasses that we need to be thinking about.” 

 

[doncat]

Only made it to 64° today during daylight hours...midnight high of 70°.

[lee59]

1 hour ago, Juliancolton said:

The NHC has been naming subtropical systems for almost 20 years. I'm not sure of the exact rationale, but in theory, STCs can pose many of the same hazards as TCs.

I don't remember them being named 20 years ago but I know for sure some of these storms they name now would never have been named years ago. It seems every year they are naming more and more storms that are not  even close to tropical. If they want to include non tropical systems in with tropical systems, fine, however they should not make comparisons with years ago records. The next thing you know they will be including Nor"easters. 

[lee59]

Lee Goldberg mentioned the plant growth around Central Park recording station and how there is to much difference between Newark and Central Park.

[Gravity Wave]

2 hours ago, Brian5671 said:

yeah I would never pay good $$ to go away Memorial day in the northeast, still spring really (and subject to cloudy 60 degree weather or worse)

Memorial Day usually manages to have good weather, even in years with bad springs (like most recent years).

[bluewave]

13 minutes ago, Gravity Wave said:

Memorial Day usually manages to have good weather, even in years with bad springs (like most recent years).

Memorial Day may end up being the best day of the entire holiday weekend.

 

 

[donsutherland1]

Tomorrow will be fair and comfortable. Another big push of warm air is likely Wednesday into Thursday. Another cooldown will follow.

The Memorial Day weekend will likely be unsettled and cooler. Periods of rain are possible, though there is large uncertainty about the amount of precipitation. A light to perhaps moderate rainfall appears more likely than a heavy rainfall based on the ensembles.

The first 7-10 days of June could start off warmer than normal. The MJO's passage through Phase 4 at an amplitude of 1.500 or above during the May 15-25 period coupled with ENSO Region 1+2 temperature anomalies above -1.0°C and below +1.0°C, as has been the case this year, has typically seen warmth in the East during the first 10 days of June. Cooler conditions typically prevailed when the ENSO Region 1+2 anomalies were outside that range.

Neutral ENSO conditions have now developed. The ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly was -0.7°C and the Region 3.4 anomaly was -0.2°C for the week centered around May 19. For the past six weeks, the ENSO Region 1+2 anomaly has averaged -0.78°C and the ENSO Region 3.4 anomaly has averaged -0.33°C. Neutral ENSO conditions will likely prevail into at least mid-summer.

The SOI was -7.95 today.

The preliminary Arctic Oscillation (AO) figure was +0.561 today.

On May 22 the MJO was in Phase 5 at an amplitude of 1.756 (RMM). The May 21-adjusted amplitude was 1.644 (RMM).

In late April, the MJO moved through Phase 8 at an extreme amplitude (+3.000 or above). Only February 25, 1988 and March 18-19, 2015 had a higher amplitude at Phase 8. Both 1988 and 2015 went on to have an exceptionally warm July-August period. July-August 1988 had a mean temperature of 79.1°, which ranked 4th highest for that two-month period. July-August 2015 had a mean temperature of 78.9°, which ranked 5th highest for that two-month period. September 2015 was also the warmest September on record. The MJO's extreme passage through Phase 8 could provide the first hint of a hot summer.

Based on sensitivity analysis applied to the latest guidance, there is an implied 74% probability that New York City will have a warmer than normal May (1991-2020 normal). May will likely finish with a mean temperature near 64.3° (1.1° above normal).

 

[forkyfork]

wednesday looks like our first svr threat of the season 

[mjr]

11 hours ago, dWave said:

For a good chunk of spring CPK isnt fully leafed out yet, so the temp disparity doesn't show as much yet compared to nearby urban stations. Also in spring the Park is a little more protected from the frequent cool E/NE  flow, keeping LGA cooler on some days. As that influence gets weaker later on, back door fronts less common, and the vegetation gets lush the Park's cool bias starts on cue.

I wish I could find the article, but the NWS has already acknowledged this phenomenon is legitimate 10 yrs ago or so. They basically just accept it as is for a few reasons...

1. Technically KNYC is accurate for what it is, a dense semi forested park, and its readings accuratly reflect that. (Kinda putting the onus on the consumer to recognize a park for what it is vs an urbanized street and analyze accordingly.)

2. Its historical significance. Its one of the longest running climate stations, and in America's biggest city. They dont want to mess with it. So its just grandfathered in to the climate data despite falling short of their own offical standards.

3. There are plenty of offical weather stations around it to reflect the local urban climate. (Kind of putting it at the medias feet to use all available data to portray an accurate picture to the public.) In fact the closest offical reporting station for many/most NYC residents isnt KNYC, but LGA or JFK...all of Queens, the BX and portions of BK would fall into that.

The ASOS is not that far from Museum of Natural History. Its fenced in, surrounded by trees, last I saw some now hang over the top as well. In wetter patterns weeds and shrubs will be overgrown near-by too. The trees do help shield it from the public which the NWS probably likes.

It is precisely because of its significance that the historical record should not be corrupted by unrepresentative (of the larger surrounding area) data. They did "mess" with the site when the moved it to its current location back in the 1990s. To be fair, they probably could not foresee that this would lead to any significant change from the previous location but the "mess" soon became apparent. As is true in the stock market, they should have just "cut their losses" and rectified the situation.

Even if, in an ideal world,  the local population and the local media would be aware of the situation and analyze/report accordingly, this would not address the misconceptions that are created when national/world media as well as professional weather news and forecasting outlets summarize a summer season by using 90 degree days and give an inaccurate portrayal of New York City (no mention of any park).    

[CIK62]

The last 7 days of May are averaging 64degs.(56/72), or -2.5.

Month to date is  63.3[+1.0].       May should end near 63.5[+0.2].

Only the GFS has 90 for tomorrow.      It ends the month in the 50's perhaps.        Next big heat could start near June 04.

58*(70%RH) here at 6am, m. clear---few clouds.         61* by 9am.       62* by Noon.        64* by 3pm.      65* at 4pm.

[lee59]

6 hours ago, mjr said:

It is precisely because of its significance that the historical record should not be corrupted by unrepresentative (of the larger surrounding area) data. They did "mess" with the site when the moved it to its current location back in the 1990s. To be fair, they probably could not foresee that this would lead to any significant change from the previous location but the "mess" soon became apparent. As is true in the stock market, they should have just "cut their losses" and rectified the situation.

Even if, in an ideal world,  the local population and the local media would be aware of the situation and analyze/report accordingly, this would not address the misconceptions that are created when national/world media as well as professional weather news and forecasting outlets summarize a summer season by using 90 degree days and give an inaccurate portrayal of New York City (no mention of any park).    

Maybe if they cut back the foliage, it will increase some of those daytime temperatures and decrease some of the nighttime temperatures.

[bluewave]

The Euro has low 90s temperatures with low 70s dew points on Wednesday. So the heat indices will soar well into the 90s away from the shore where there will be a strong sea breeze. Hopefully, the convection holds together down to the coast for some much needed rainfall in the evening.

 

[donsutherland1]

Morning thoughts...

Today will be variably cloudy and pleasant. Temperatures will likely top out in the lower and middle and upper 70s in most of the region. Likely high temperatures around the region include:

New York City (Central Park): 74°

Newark: 79°

Philadelphia: 78°

Tomorrow will be partly sunny and much warmer.

[SACRUS]

Clouds look to linger through at least the early afternoon.  Wed should get most to 90, Thu sneaky warmth and maybe some 90s if is mostly sunny in the warmer spots before clouds.  Fri - Sunday look cloudy, cool and wet >1.00" would be welcome just bad timing with the holiday weekend.  Warmer by Memorial day and into early June.  Tracking the next heat spike would place timing of heights rise between Jun 6 - 9 period.  Kind of onshore-ish before then and we'll see how much rain we can get in the buckets.

[bluewave]

The new ground level stations look interesting. Not a big fan of the rooftop station temperatures. I posted the high temperature summary from Saturday.

http://nysmesonet.org/networks/nyc

Ten sites are located at ground level, eleven sites are deployed on roof tops, and one site is located on a pier. A majority of Micronet stations measure air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and pressure. A mix of stations also measure wind speed and direction, solar radiation, snow depth, soil temperature and moisture, surface (skin) temperature, and water temperature. Micronet data are collected every 5 minutes, quality controlled, archived and made available to users in real-time. The 17 Con Edison sites and 5 NYS Mesonet sites located in NYC are shown in the data display below.

Station	Max	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Max	Min	Liquid	Peak Gust	Peak 5m Avg	Integrated
13th St./16th / Alphabet City	93	67	80	93	67	66	28	0.00	13 4:10pm	4 2:20pm	17.0
160 Ave. / Howard Beach	91	61	77	91	61	87	29	0.00
28th St. / Chelsea	90	66	79	90	66	73	29	0.00	19 2:40pm	6 2:40pm	15.3
Astoria	91	64	78	91	64	77	29	0.00	17 4:40pm	9 2:05pm	17.7
Bensonhurst / Mapleton	92	65	79	92	65	73	28	0.00			15.7
Bronx Mesonet	88	64	77	88	64	73	34	0.00	23 3:00pm	13 3:00pm	19.8
Brooklyn Mesonet	88	63	77	88	63	74	31	0.00	28 2:40pm	18 2:40pm	18.3
Brownsville	94	64	79	94	64	76	26	0.00
Corona	92	65	79	92	65	73	27	0.00
E 40th St. / Murray Hill	90	67	79	90	67	64	30	0.00
Fresh Kills	91	64	79	91	64	66	30	0.00	20 6:00pm	11 5:40pm
Glendale / Maspeth	90	64	79	90	64	75	29	0.00
Gold Street / Navy Yard	90	68	80	90	68	60	29	0.00	22 3:00pm	12 3:00pm	18.2
Lefferts / South Ozone Park	93	62	78	93	62	83	28	0.00
Manhattan Mesonet	87	70	80	87	70	60	32	0.00	30 2:35pm	17 2:30pm	15.7
Newtown / Long Island City	90	66	79	90	66	66	27	0.00	18 5:15pm	7 2:40pm	16.9
Queens Mesonet	88	63	77	88	63	76	32	0.00	23 3:00pm	15 4:50pm	18.0
Queensbridge / Dutch Kills	91	67	80	91	67	68	27	0.00			15.2
Staten Island Mesonet	89	65	78	89	65	63	32	0.00	28 6:00pm	16 2:45pm	18.1
TLC Center	89	66	78	89	66	67	30	0.00	19 3:05pm	8 2:40pm	17.8
Tremont / Van Nest	93	64	79	93	64	75	28	0.00	16 2:25pm	5 3:05pm	17.7

[uofmiami]

37 minutes ago, bluewave said:

The new ground level stations look interesting. Not a big fan of the rooftop station temperatures. I posted the high temperature summary from Saturday.

http://nysmesonet.org/networks/nyc

Ten sites are located at ground level, eleven sites are deployed on roof tops, and one site is located on a pier. A majority of Micronet stations measure air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and pressure. A mix of stations also measure wind speed and direction, solar radiation, snow depth, soil temperature and moisture, surface (skin) temperature, and water temperature. Micronet data are collected every 5 minutes, quality controlled, archived and made available to users in real-time. The 17 Con Edison sites and 5 NYS Mesonet sites located in NYC are shown in the data display below.

Station	Max	Min	Avg	Max	Min	Max	Min	Liquid	Peak Gust	Peak 5m Avg	Integrated
13th St./16th / Alphabet City	93	67	80	93	67	66	28	0.00	13 4:10pm	4 2:20pm	17.0
160 Ave. / Howard Beach	91	61	77	91	61	87	29	0.00
28th St. / Chelsea	90	66	79	90	66	73	29	0.00	19 2:40pm	6 2:40pm	15.3
Astoria	91	64	78	91	64	77	29	0.00	17 4:40pm	9 2:05pm	17.7
Bensonhurst / Mapleton	92	65	79	92	65	73	28	0.00			15.7
Bronx Mesonet	88	64	77	88	64	73	34	0.00	23 3:00pm	13 3:00pm	19.8
Brooklyn Mesonet	88	63	77	88	63	74	31	0.00	28 2:40pm	18 2:40pm	18.3
Brownsville	94	64	79	94	64	76	26	0.00
Corona	92	65	79	92	65	73	27	0.00
E 40th St. / Murray Hill	90	67	79	90	67	64	30	0.00
Fresh Kills	91	64	79	91	64	66	30	0.00	20 6:00pm	11 5:40pm
Glendale / Maspeth	90	64	79	90	64	75	29	0.00
Gold Street / Navy Yard	90	68	80	90	68	60	29	0.00	22 3:00pm	12 3:00pm	18.2
Lefferts / South Ozone Park	93	62	78	93	62	83	28	0.00
Manhattan Mesonet	87	70	80	87	70	60	32	0.00	30 2:35pm	17 2:30pm	15.7
Newtown / Long Island City	90	66	79	90	66	66	27	0.00	18 5:15pm	7 2:40pm	16.9
Queens Mesonet	88	63	77	88	63	76	32	0.00	23 3:00pm	15 4:50pm	18.0
Queensbridge / Dutch Kills	91	67	80	91	67	68	27	0.00			15.2
Staten Island Mesonet	89	65	78	89	65	63	32	0.00	28 6:00pm	16 2:45pm	18.1
TLC Center	89	66	78	89	66	67	30	0.00	19 3:05pm	8 2:40pm	17.8
Tremont / Van Nest	93	64	79	93	64	75	28	0.00	16 2:25pm	5 3:05pm	17.7

Interesting that the Manhattan mesonet, E of Central Park in Lenox Hill section only reached 87, yet some complained about Central Park's high temp that day.  Curious to see how that Mesonet location's high temperatures are compared to Central Park's high temp this summer.  I would have thought it would have been warmer compared to the Park, being it's measure on the roof at that site.

[bluewave]

58 minutes ago, uofmiami said:

Interesting that the Manhattan mesonet, E of Central Park in Lenox Hill section only reached 87, yet some complained about Central Park's high temp that day.  Curious to see how that Mesonet location's high temperatures are compared to Central Park's high temp this summer.  I would have thought it would have been warmer compared to the Park, being it's measure on the roof at that site.

That site is part of the original mesonet that was installed several years back. It’s located at 311 feet so it’s one of the coolest NYC sites on hot days.Temperatures can fall off pretty quickly above the standard 2m height. That’s  why I am not a fan of rooftop temperatures. A ground station like Wantagh today is 1.5° cooler at 9m than 2m.

 

http://www.nysmesonet.org/weather#network=nysm&stid=manh

Elevation:

311 feet

[LibertyBell]

23 hours ago, bluewave said:

It would be interesting to see how many more 100° days we would have had without the big increase in agriculture in those areas.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/02/america-s-corn-belt-making-its-own-weather

The United States’s Corn Belt is making its own weather

By Kimberly HickokFeb. 16, 2018 , 12:05 PM

The Great Plains of the central United States—the Corn Belt—is one of the most fertile regions on Earth, producing more than 10 billion bushels of corn each year. It’s also home to some mysterious weather: Whereas the rest of the world has warmed, the region’s summer temperatures have dropped as much as a full degree Celsius, and rainfall has increased up to 35%, the largest spike anywhere in the world. The culprit, according to a new study, isn’t greenhouse gas emissions or sea surface temperature—it’s the corn itself.

This is the first time anyone has examined regional climate change in the central United States by directly comparing the influence of greenhouse gas emissions to agriculture, says Nathan Mueller, an earth systems scientist at the University of California (UC), Irvine, who was not involved with this study. It’s important to understand how agricultural activity can have “surprisingly strong” impacts on climate change, he says.

The Corn Belt stretches from the panhandle of Texas up to North Dakota and east to Ohio. The amount of corn harvested in this region annually has increased by 400% since 1950, from 2 billion to 10 billion bushels. Iowa leads the country for the most corn produced per state.

 

Get more great content like this delivered right to you!To see whether this increase in crops has influenced the region’s unusual weather, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge used computers to model five different 30-year climate simulations, based on data from 1982 to 2011. First, they compared simulations with high levels of intense agriculture to control simulations with no agricultural influence. Unlike the real-life climate changes, the control simulations showed no change in temperature or rainfall. But 62% of the simulations with intense agriculture resulted in temperature and rainfall changes that mirror the observed changes, the team reports this week in Geophysical Research Letters.

Map of the central United States, showing changes in rainfall during the last third of the 20th century. Areas of increased rainfall are shown in green, with darker colors representing a greater increase.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 

The team then compared its results to historical global simulations from the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international program for the coordination of global climate research sponsored by the International Council for Science, the World Meteorological Organization, and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. WCRP’s models take into account greenhouse gas emissions and other natural and humanmade influences, but do not consider agricultural land use. When researchers ran the numbers for the Corn Belt, the global models fell short of reality: They predicted both temperature and humidity to increase slightly, and rainfall to increase by up to 4%—none of which matches the observed changes.

Other climate simulations that use sea surface temperature variation didn’t match observed changes, either. Those simulations matched historical data until 1970; after that, the simulations predicted temperatures to keep increasing, rather than decreasing as they did in reality. This is a strong indication that agriculture, and not changing sea surface temperature, caused the regional changes in climate during the last third of the 20th century, the researchers say.

“The [influence] of agriculture intensification is really an independent problem from greenhouse gas emissions,” says Ross Alter, lead author of the study and now a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Hanover, New Hampshire. In fact, Alter says, heavy agriculture likely counteracted rising temperatures regionally that might have otherwise resulted from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. One other place that shows a similar drop in temperatures, he notes, is eastern China, where intensive agriculture is widespread.

But how does agriculture cause increased rainfall and decreased temperatures? The team suspects it has to do with photosynthesis, which leads to more water vapor in the air. When a plant’s pores, called stomata, open to allow carbon dioxide to enter, they simultaneously allow water to escape. This increases the amount of water going into the atmosphere and returning as rainfall. The cycle may continue as that rainwater eventually moves back into the atmosphere and causes more rainfall downwind from the original agricultural area.

Rong Fu, a climate scientist at UC Los Angeles, agrees with the team’s assessment. She also thinks that though human influence might be “greater than we realize,” this regional climate change is probably caused by many factors, including increased irrigation in the region.

“This squares with a lot of other evidence,” says Peter Huybers, a climate scientist at Harvard University, who calls the new study convincing. But he warns that such benefits may not last if greenhouse gas emissions eventually overpower the mitigating effect of agriculture.

Alter agrees, and says it’s unlikely that the large increases in U.S. crop production during the 20th century will continue. Other scientists have voiced concern that agricultural production could soon be reaching its limit in many parts of the world. 

“Food production is arguably what we’re more concerned about with climate change,” Mueller says. And understanding how agriculture and climate will continue to affect one another is crucial for developing projections for both climate and agricultural yields. “It’s not just greenhouse gasses that we need to be thinking about.” 

 

conventional farming practices are actually horrible for the soil, resulting in the use of harmful chemicals  and the environment in general.  Regenerative farming is MUCH better, humanity is finally learning that working with nature is FAR better than fighting against nature.

 

https://agfundernews.com/regenerative-agriculture-is-getting-more-mainstream-but-how-scalable-is-it.html

Amid increasing consumer demand for transparency and a multitude of labels and initiatives, it can be hard to define what’s truly sustainable in the global agricultural system. By basic definition, sustainable food systems do not take away from the soil or environment. They seek to maintain Earth’s natural resources.

But about one-third of the world’s topsoil is already acutely degraded, and the United Nations estimates a complete degradation within 60 years if current practices continue. According to a 2019 UN report, nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history, with the pace of species extinctions accelerating. Given this current state, are sustainable agriculture activists limiting themselves by merely maintaining?

Enter regenerative agriculture. Dubbed “beyond sustainable,” regenerative agricultural methodologies seek to add to the soil through a self-nourishing ecological system that benefits the environment in the process. A closed-loop system that doesn’t halt humans’ impact on the environment, but reverses it. Is it too good to be true?

How regenerative agriculture works
The regenerative farming approach focuses on restoring soils that have been degraded by the industrial, agricultural system. Its methods promote healthier ecosystems by rebuilding soil organic matter through holistic farming and grazing techniques. In short, regenerative agriculture practitioners let nature do the work.

Soil organic matter is plant or animal tissue in the process of decay. While most soils are only 2% to 10% soil organic matter, this plays a vital role in soil health.

Each one-percent increase in soil organic matter helps soil hold 20,000 gallons more water per acre. And heightened water holding capacity means crops are more resilient through times of drought or heavy rain. By maintaining surface residues, roots, and soil structure with better aggregation and pores, soil organic matter reduces nutrient runoff and erosion, as well.

And the healthier the soil, the healthier the crop. When plants have the nutrients and roots systems they need to thrive, they build compounds to help protect against insects and disease. There is also growing evidence that a healthy soil microbiome full of necessary bacteria, fungi, and nematodes is more likely to produce nutrient-dense food, promoting better human health.

Regenerative farming practices boost soil health through a variety of techniques:

 

[doncat]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

That site is part of the original mesonet that was installed several years back. It’s located at 311 feet so it’s one of the coolest NYC sites on hot days.Temperatures can fall off pretty quickly above the standard 2m height. That’s  why I am not a fan of rooftop temperatures. A ground station like Wantagh today is 1.5° cooler at 9m than 2m.

 

http://www.nysmesonet.org/weather#network=nysm&stid=manh

Elevation:

311 feet

Good to see the Fresh Kills ( Staten Island) station is at ground level... The mesonet installed a few years ago at the college is on the roof which made it kind of a waste imo... as mentioned usually too cool during daytime and too warm at night, along with useless snow depth measurments.

[CIK62]

12Z  GFS just tosses the Lithium away and goes manic:          Shouldn't the denizens of Texas be seeing something like this?

[nycwinter]

12 minutes ago, CIK62 said:

12Z  GFS just tosses the Lithium away and goes manic:          Shouldn't the denizens of Texas be seeing something like this?

lol..