AMO and THC
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), or the North Atlantic’s periodic shift (65-year period) from predominately warm to predominately cool regimes, controls much of the climatic variability in...
View ArticleNorth Atlantic Basin Heat Distribution
The amount of energy that the North Atlantic Basin accumulated over the last 50 years is equivalent to almost four trillion tons of TNT (1.610 1022 joules). This energy has not been distributed...
View ArticleStagnant Storm Drains
Over the last 40 years in the eastern U.S., there has been an increase in the frequency during warm months of 30-day periods when there is no rain. These dry spells now occur about twice as often as...
View ArticleFall Migration in the Eastern US
The warming trend over the last thirty years in the Eastern U.S. has coincided with changes in the behavior of migratory birds. Depending on each individual specieslifestyle, birds that breed in the...
View ArticleENSO and Gulf Coast Lightning
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or the cyclical movement of heat in the tropical Pacific Ocean, affects atmospheric phenomena throughout the world. The cycle affects the strength and position...
View ArticleClimbing Vines and Carbon- The Southeast
In the Amazon Rainforest, woody climbing vines, also known as lianas, are increasing in dominance throughout the Amazon Rainforest at a rate of 1.7 to 4.6 percent a year. Lianas harm the trees that...
View ArticleTropical Take Over
An air mass is a large body of air with relatively uniform temperature and humidity. These masses can be thousands of miles across and up to ten miles high. Air masses develop over what are known as...
View ArticleNorth Atlantic Seabird Success
Seabirds, such as auks, gulls, petrels, terns, and gannets, have spent tens of millions of years adapting to life on the ocean. Some species, such as the Sooty Tern, can spend years at sea before...
View ArticleLosing Louisiana
Over the last century, the World’s sea level rose eight inches. Changes in coastlines have been particularly pronounced in Louisiana. Since 1900, over one million acres of the State’s coastal wetlands...
View ArticleAquifer Invasion
When the Earth warms, as it has since the Little Ice Age ended in about 1850, waters expand and ice melts. These factors cause global sea levels to rise. Over the Twentieth Century, the Planet?s seas...
View ArticleTree Swallow Reproduction
Tree Swallows are medium-sized birds with white underbellies and iridescent blue-green capes that run from their heads to their wing tips. They often live in flocks that can number hundreds of...
View ArticleAlmight AMO
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) is a 65-year cycle during which sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic alternate between warm (positive) and cool (negative) phases. The effects of...
View ArticleParasite Populations
From the time of its discovery in the Gulf of Mexico in the 1940′s until about 1990, a single-celled marine parasite (Perkinsus marinus) was rarely spotted north of the Chesapeake Bay. Perkinsus...
View ArticleArctic Oscillation and Tropical Cyclones
The AO is the oscillation of pressure difference between the middle and high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. Negative phases occur when there is relatively high pressure over the polar regions...
View ArticleENSO and Winter Tornadoes (Louisiana)
The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), or the cyclical movement of heat in the tropical Pacific Ocean, affects atmospheric phenomena throughout the world. Its effects are the most pronounced during...
View ArticleThe Early Bird…
The charismatic and colorful Wood Duck provides bird-watchers with a familiar and welcome sight. Hunters also value this bird, which is second only to the mallard in terms of numbers shot each year....
View ArticleENSO and Tropical Cyclone Landfall
The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, or the cyclical movement of heat in the tropical Pacific Ocean, affects the upper atmosphere over the Atlantic Ocean. This affects both the frequency of...
View ArticleENSO and Mosquitos
El Nino years correspond to higher temperatures and above average rainfall in the Southeastern U.S. If this increased rainfall comes in frequent and steady showers instead of a few strong storms, then...
View ArticleDischarges and Dead Zones
Since 1910, overall precipitation in the lower 48 states has increased by ten percent, and the region with the largest increase in rainfall is the Mississippi River Basin. Because of fertilizer use on...
View ArticleStrengthening Storms and Surges
Tropical cyclones are one of Earth’s mechanisms for distributing heat from the sweltering tropical regions to the frigid poles. Once the winds inside these cyclones reach 75 miles per hour, they are...
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