By Chad Kruger Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability The observed temperature records of the US Pacific Northwest show a small, but statistically significant amount of warming of just over 1 degree F since the year 1900. A paper published in March of this year by Abatzaglou, Rupp and Mote (2014) used a multiple […]
By John Abatzoglou, U Idaho jabatzoglou@uidaho.edu, Philip Mote, OSU pmote@coas.oregonstate.edu, David Rupp, OSU drupp@coas.oregonstate.edu Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator Comments on “Atmospheric controls on northeast Pacific temperature variability and change, 1900–2012″ by Johnstone and Mantua Synopsis: A preliminary examination of this paper suggests that the results – in particular the conclusion that rising greenhouse gases played little role […]
By Rachel Webber, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences Reprinted from: WSU News AgWeatherNet PROSSER, Wash. – It’s official. This summer’s heat set a record. And it followed the warmest spring in 20 years, which made the 2014 growing season an unusually prolonged period of anomalous warmth. “2014 was Prosser’s hottest summer on […]
By CIRCulator Editorial Staff Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator THE NORTHWESTERN UNITED STATES has gotten significantly warmer over the last 100 years. Plus, the rate of warming has sped up in three of four seasons. These long-term regional warming trends are closely tied to increases in greenhouse gases, CIRC scientists have found. This “anthropogenic” (human-caused) […]
By CIRCulator Editorial Staff Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator DROUGHTS ARE COSTLY. So it’s not surprising that resource managers have put a premium on planning for droughts, such as the one currently gripping the West. But existing drought plans are getting poor marks from the managers charged with implementing them. “Useless” and “essentially ignored” are […]
By CIRCulator Editorial Staff Reprinted from: The Climate CIRCulator THE WINTER WONDERLAND of snow-capped mountains in the western United States is becoming less snowy. Indeed, a fundamental shift in wintertime precipitation in the mountains and highlands of the American West is on the way, researchers suggest. Across the region, many communities — among them towns […]
By Chad Kruger Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability One of the caveats I always state when presenting the results of our research on projected climate change impacts on PNW agricultural production is: we don’t yet know if climate change will disrupt our existing regional climate cycles. To date, the climate forecasts for our […]
By Chad Kruger Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability In a recent interview that covered the gamut of oft-cited threats to agricultural sustainability and food security (drought, food safety, energy disruption, economics, terrorism, chemical pollution, genetic pollution, impacts on pollinators, soil erosion, climate change, etc.), I was asked which threat I thought was the […]
By Nicholas Kennedy Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability Washington State, 10th in milk production nationally, is also at the top of the list for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced from dairy cattle. According to the latest statistics by the EPA, in 2012 Washington State ranked 8th in methane (CH4) emissions from dairy manure […]