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Category Archives: Climate
Is the California drought over?
Drought in the United States has been assessed by a number of different measures over the last several decades. One of the older such measures is the Palmer Drought Index introduced in 1965. The Palmer Index is based on a … Continue reading
What are the plant hardy zones and how do they relate to climate?
If you are involved with gardening, you probably are aware of the hardy zones listed on seed packets.
Southern Wisconsin is largely in zones 5a and 4b, while northern Wisconsin lies in zones 3a to 4a. Continue reading
Category: Climate, Meteorology, Seasons
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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 is the ice cover on the Great Lakes?
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitors and reports on the ice coverage of the Great Lakes. The average concentration of ice on Lake Superior is currently 5.7 percent, compared to 4.6 percent last year and 55.5 percent in 2015. … Continue reading
Category: Climate, Meteorology, Phenomena, Seasons
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Is human activity impacting global climate?
The observational evidence that our Earth is warming is overwhelming and unmistakable. Earth scientists agree that in the past 200-plus years, human activity has been a significant contributing factor to the observed increase in mean global temperatures. Scientists cannot explain this increasing temperature trend without incorporating human impacts, primarily the burning fossil fuels.
Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist, was probably the first scientist to propose that burning fossil fuels could modify our global temperatures. He recognized that carbon dioxide (CO2), a byproduct of burning carbon-based substances such as natural gas, gasoline and oil, is like a greenhouse gas and that increasing the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere through human activities could lead to a warmer Earth. He made this estimate in 1896. So, we have been aware of the fundamental physics of global warming for over 100 years. Continue reading
