Posted on 03/22/2002 7:30:44 AM PST by cogitator
Gardeners, Start Your Tomatoes!
Even in mild years like this one, winter seems to drag on forever in the U.S. Upper Midwest, and spring can't come too soon. Just ask the gardeners of Illinois, who use just about every contrivance (the "Wall-O-Water" is not an adult toy!) to get their tomatoes in the ground as early as possible.
But spring is springing sooner, says Indiana University's Scott Robeson. About one week's worth, in fact. Robeson looked at long-term records from Illinois and found that the last spring freeze is occurring about a week earlier, averaged across the state, than it did 100 years ago.
This is yet another mole upon the mountain of evidence that human-induced warming affects the coldest air of winter more than anything else. There are good scientific reasons to expect that to be so, since a change in atmospheric carbon dioxide should warm dry air much more than it would a moist atmosphere.
Cold air is in general much drier than warm air—which is why skin gets flaky as the days grow short. In fact, the coldest air of winter has, on the average, only 1/1000 the number of water molecules as the warmest air of summer, which is far more humid.
The cold air masses that cause the last freeze in spring can only reach sufficiently low night temperatures if their dewpoint (the temperature at which moisture will condense out) is near or below freezing. Dewpoint is a measure of the total amount of moisture in the air, so air masses with low dewpoints are very dry. Those are the ones we expect the greenhouse effect to warm the most.
Readers of these pages know that WCR researchers recently published a technical article demonstrating that indeed it is the coldest air of winter that has warmed the most as the greenhouse effect has changed. Because the same types of air masses create the last freeze in the spring, it's not surprising that Robeson found a slight lengthening on that end of the growing season.
Those of us who want early tomatoes know that adding on to the growing season in the fall doesn't do a lick of good—by then the tomatoes are about as attractive and clean as the Chicago River. So Robeson's findings of a springtime season gain are welcome indeed. Thanks to the wonders of the greenhouse effect, Illinois gardeners can forget the Hotkaps, black plastic (neither of those is an adult toy, either!), Walls-O-Water and other contrivances. You can now plant tomatoes a week earlier than your grandparents.
References:
Robeson, S.M., 2002. Increasing growing season length in Illinois during the 20th century. Climatic Change, 52, 219–238.
Knappenberger, P.C., P.J. Michaels, R.E. Davis, 2001. Nature of observed temperature changes across the United States during the 20th century. Climate Research, 17, 45–53.
It's 27 degrees with a wind chill making it 16 degrees at 10:30 AM here in So. Illinois...Tomatos aren't my problem, I'm not in the mood to hear about any vegitables (or fruit, if you want that kind of argument)... my heater busted last night so the sooner Global Warming gets here the better, as far as I'm concerned!
Boating season is too dang short!
This is yet another soda can in the kennel of bad writing.
Somehow, your comforting words are not giving me a warm & fuzzy feeling!
P.S. The temperature has "risen" to a wonderful and balmy 34 degrees here. LOL!
Today here in the Constipation State it is 20 with a wicked wind. It wasn't this cold all winter long. Now we have a couple snow events forecast for next week, whatever that's worth.
I'll be unavailable for comment for the next hour or so...I'm going to sit in the refridgerator for a while to warm-up!
It has been unusually warm this winter, but when I stuck a pitchfork in the ground last week when it hit 48, the tines only went in 3/4" before hitting frozen ground.
Cutesy? I suppose. Just plain nonsensical, was what I was originally thinking. It should have been "This is yet another molehill upon the mountain of evidence...."
I was listening, as long as the clown was talking about tomatoes...
That leap to "human-induced warming effects" forced me to abandon dimwit-city.
Gheeeez! don't these losers ever give up?
Warming and cooling has been a permanent part of climate for the last hundred million years, dahlinks.
Huh?
What's "frozen ground"?
"Please...my wife and I got a hard core case of 'garden fever' when temps in east Tennessee got up into the 70's earlier this month. Put in our broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cabbage last weekend. Nineteen degrees this morning...end of garden. Should have known better."
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Same thing happened here....in Oklahoma. Course most Okies know that if you think the weathers nice, just wait an hour.
FRegards,
That leap to "human-induced warming effects" forced me to abandon dimwit-city. Gheeeez! don't these losers ever give up?
I know it's a bit late in the thread to point this out, but the "clown" and "dimwit" to whom you refer is Dr. Patrick Michaels, one of the leading (if not THE leading) climate change skeptic in the United States.
Editors and Contributors (Greening Earth Society)
"Dr. Michaels is a Research Professor of Environmental Sciences at the University of Virginia and is the Virginia State Climatologist. He received his A.B. and S.M. degrees from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in Ecological Climatology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1979. Dr. Michaels has been President of the American Association of State Climatologists and Program Chair of the Applied Climatology Committee of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Michaels has published over 200 popular and scientific articles on climate and its impact on society, including two books, Sound and Fury: The Science and Politics of Global Warming, published by Cato Books in 1992, and The Satanic Gases, published by Cato Books in 2000. According to the scientific magazine Nature, Dr. Michaels is the United States' most popular speaker on the subject of global warming."
So maybe we should pay attention to what he says?
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