Scientists See Rise in Tornado-creating Conditions

By Sharon Begley

Worldwide - When at least 80 tornadoes rampaged across the United States, from the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico, last Friday, it was more than is typically observed during the entire month of March, tracking firm AccuWeather.com reported on Monday.

According to some climate scientists, such earlier-than-normal outbreaks of tornadoes, which typically peak in the spring, will become the norm as the planet warms.

"As spring moves up a week or two, tornado season will start in February instead of waiting for April," said climatologist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Whether climate change will also affect the frequency or severity of tornadoes, however, remains very much an open question, and one that has received surprisingly little study.

"There are only a handful of papers, even to this day," said atmospheric scientist Robert Trapp of Purdue University, who led a pioneering 2007 study of tornadoes and climate change.

"Some of us think we should be paying more attention to it," said atmospheric physicist Anthony Del Genio of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, part of NASA.

The scientific challenge is this: the two conditions necessary to spawn a twister are expected to be affected in opposite ways. A warmer climate will likely boost the intensity of thunderstorms but could dampen wind shear, the increase of wind speed at higher altitudes, researchers say.

Tomorrow's thunderstorms will pack a bigger wallop, but may strike less frequently than they have historically, explained Del Genio.

"As we go to a warmer atmosphere, storms - which transfer energy from one region to another - somehow figure out how to do that more efficiently," he said. As a result, thunderstorms transfer more energy per outbreak, and so have to make such transfers less often.

In a 2011 paper, Del Genio calculated that, "especially in the central and eastern United States, we can expect a few more days per month with conditions favorable to severe thunderstorm occurrence" by the latter part of this century if the global climate grows warmer.

Indeed, the world has been experiencing more violent storms since 1970, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reported in its most recent assessment.

EXTENDING TORNADOES' PATH

Purdue's Trapp and colleagues got a similar result in their 2007 study, which they confirmed in research published in 2009 and 2011. "The number of days when conditions exist to form tornadoes is expected to increase" as the world warms, he said.

In addition, they found, regions near the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts not normally associated with tornadoes will experience tornado-making weather more frequently. They projected a doubling in the number of days with such conditions in Atlanta and New York City, for instance.

More powerful thunderstorms would be expected to produce more tornadoes, but wind shear could prove a mitigating factor.

Because climate change is not uniform, Del Genio wrote in the 2011 paper, "in the lower troposphere, the temperature difference between low and high latitudes decreases as the planet warms, creating less wind shear."

Other scientists are not so sure, and they see a surge in tornadoes last year as ominous. April 2011 was the most active tornado month on record, with 753, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), compared to the previous record of 267 in April 1974.

"I have no doubt that there will be many times when wind shear is plenty strong to create a tornado," said Trenberth.

That is what Trapp's team concluded in their 2007 study. "Over most of the United States," they wrote, the increase in the power of thunderstorms will "more than compensate for the relative decreases in shear."
As a result, "the environment would still be considered favorable for severe convection" of the kind that creates tornadoes.

From March to May the projected increase in severe storms is "largest over a 'tornado-alley'-like region extending northward from Texas," Trapp found. From June through August, the eastern half of the country is projected to experience such an increase.

If there are more days in the future when wind shear is too weak to produce a tornado from a thunderstorm, said Trenberth, then "the frequency of tornadoes may decrease but the average intensity might increase. You could have a doozy of an outbreak, and then they could go away for a while."

On average, about 800 tornados are reported annually in the United States. About 70 percent are "weak," finds NOAA, with winds less than 110 mph. Just under 29 percent are "strong," with winds between 110 and 205 mph. Only 2 percent of all tornadoes are what NOAA characterizes as "violent," with winds in excess of 205 mph, but they account for 70 percent of all twister deaths.

Warm Winter May Bring Pest-filled Spring

Hartford, Connecticut - The mild winter that has given many Northern farmers a break from shoveling and a welcome chance to catch up on maintenance could lead to a tough spring as many pests that would normally freeze have not.

Winters are usually what one agriculture specialist calls a "reset button" that gives farmer a fresh start come planting season. But with relatively mild temperatures and little snow, insects are surviving, growing and, in some areas, already munching on budding plants.

Almost every state had a warmer-than-usual January, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In Albany, N.Y., for example, the average high in January was 37 degrees, when it's usually less than freezing, according to the National Weather Service. In Tulsa, Okla., the average high last month was about 57 degrees, 9 degrees higher than normal.

The Upper Midwest, Great Plains and a few other areas were "much above normal" in temperature, NOAA said.

Dawn Allen, who has an 89-year-old, family-run bog in Freetown, Mass., said her family will likely start sweeping bogs with a contraption similar to a butterfly net in April to catch winter moth caterpillars, instead of waiting until mid-May, when they typically start. The winter moth caterpillars are aggressive and eat buds, potentially ruining a crop for a whole year.

"It's a big stress factor that gets us out on the bog early," said Allen, whose farm sells cranberries for juice and pulp converted into cranberry vitamins.

Martha Sylvia, a research technician at the University of Massachusetts cranberry station, said growers should expect to start spraying earlier and more often because there's "definitely an upswing" in winter moths, she said.

"We just know we're in for it," Sylvia said.

Tim Tucker, a beekeeper in Niotaze, Kan., said he saw flies in February when "all flies should be gone" and bumble bees that usually don't appear until May or June. The warm weather hasn't been entirely good for beekeeping, though. Usually, queen bees won't lay eggs in the cold, but this year, his hives have been active.

"This year, we have some hives that raised bees all winter," Tucker said. "I don't think they ever stopped."

Because so many bees are being raised, Tucker has had to buy supplemental food, such as sucrose, so they don't eat all the honey he wants to sell.

While bees are good for pollination, many of the insects that are surviving have a destructive bent, such as the bean leaf beetle that targets soybeans, corn flea beetle that damages corn, and the alfalfa weevil. Those insects live close to the surface of the ground so the mild temperatures give them a head start, said Christian Krupke, a Purdue University entomologist.

"Winter is like a big reset button for the Midwest," Krupke said. "It wipes out lots of insects usually."

However, the warmer temperatures generally don't affect insects that spend their winters burrowed deep into the ground, he said. And some insects may be threatened by a lack of snow.

Erin Hodgson, an entomologist at Iowa State University, said a drought there due to a lack of snow could threaten boxelder bugs and beetles, who will die if food fails to emerge. And insects that pass the winter in dormancy above ground could die of dehydration or starvation without the insulating cover of snow, she said.

"Making predictions about overall insects surviving or not can be kind of tricky," Hodgson said.

But the warmer weather hasn't been all bad, said Henry Talmage, executive director of the Connecticut Farm Bureau. He compared this winter with last year, when southern New England endured back-to-back snow storms and an ice storm. In early February 2011, farmers in Connecticut lost nearly 150 barns and other structures as feet of snow accumulated. Those in Massachusetts and upstate New York also struggled with roof collapses.

This year, farmers were able to spend the winter working outside, maintaining equipment and buildings, Talmage said.

"Instead of shoveling snow, farmers can do something more productive," Talmage said. "Nobody is complaining. We're all happy at this point it's been as mild as it has been."

Interracial Marriages Gaining Greater Approval in America

United States – Those who wish to see interracial marriages die off are not only going to be disappointed, but sorely so.

Marriages between people of different races and ethnic groups are at an all-time high in the United States and acceptance to it is high according to a Pew Research Center poll.

In 1980, interracial marriages made up just above three percent of the married population. Now that number is more than double, with almost eight-and-a-half percent. Also, compared to marriage data from the 80s, marriages between couples of different races or ethnicities more than doubled to 15 percent.

As far as the poll goes, it shows 43 percent of Americans view interracial marriages benefit society as a whole while 44 percent say it doesn't matter and about 11 percent see it as a detriment and . More than a third say someone in their immediate family or a relative is married to someone of a different race. As to be expected, minorities, the college-educated, people who identify as liberal, and younger adults see intermarriages as a good thing. Regionally the Northwest and West are more disposed to the idea, though it most happens in the Western section of the United States.  This is followed by 14% in the South (14%), Northeast (13%), and the Midwest (11%).

Asians are at the top of the list, with almost 28 percent, followed by Hispanics at almost 26 percent. Blacks and whites are at almost 17 percent and 9 percent respectively.

Canadian Government to Keep Up Pressue for Keystone XL

United States/Canada - Canada's finance minister announced his feeling that the Keystone XL pipeline project will be revived after the United States' presidential elections.

Finance minister Ron Liepert said the United States' government's stance on the pipeline is likely to shift toward its approval.  Given that one of the Republican Party's candidates - almost all of whom have expressed their support for it - or Obama - who won't have to face any threat the environmental side of his base presents to him - his assertion may be spot-on.

Although President Obama delayed the project, Canada's government is continuing to look for more options such as shipping their tar sands oil through the West Coast to Asia or using the Eastern Seaboard using one of the country's pipelines. Earlier this month Stephen Harper, Canada's Prime Minister, visited China to talk to the country's government about shipping their oil to the country.


"We believe Keystone will be revived and approved after the presidential election, but it's not a sure thing," said Liepert.

Fears of how the proposed pipeline would affect the Midwest's water supply, where America gets a vast amount of its food resources, have prompted environmentalist groups to oppose its construction. One of the main fears is that a pipeline rupture would devastate the aquifer, while another is the gas output would forever destroy the climate due to the massive CO2 emissions.

Thinking Obama's delay was caused at least in part to the environmentalist side of the left, a majority of Republicans have been trying to introduce a legislative bill which would require Obama to make his decision before the presidential election while promoting the idea that Keystone XL's passage would "create more jobs", a claim which has been proven wrong numerous times.