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Monthly Archives: March 2017
Is springtime pothole season?
Many drivers probably consider early spring to be pothole season.
A pothole is a structural failure in a road surface.
Potholes result from a combination of traffic and water in the underlying soil. Continue reading
Is there a “State Tournament Snowstorm” legacy?
A persistent anecdotal piece of weather lore around Madison is that the WIAA’s boys state basketball tournament is always accompanied by a snowstorm.
With the help of Edward Hopkins at the State Climatologist’s Office, we looked into this perception with cold, hard data. Continue reading
Is carbon dioxide a major contributor to global warming?
The Earth’s atmosphere is a mixture of many different gases. Several of these gases are known as “greenhouse gases” because they share the characteristic of being excellent absorbers of infra-red radiation.
Such gases absorb radiation emitted by the Earth that would otherwise escape to space and cool the planet. Upon being absorbed, these gases re-emit a fraction of that energy back downward to the surface, keeping the planet warmer than it would otherwise be. In fact, our Earth would have an average temperature of about zero without these greenhouse gases. Continue reading
Category: Climate, Meteorology
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How did this winter compare to others?
Now that the traditional winter season (December, January, February) is over, we can consider how this season stacked up against the preceding 69 winters in terms of its hemispheric intensity. One way to measure this intensity is to consider the … Continue reading
Category: Meteorology, Seasons, Uncategorized
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