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More Rainfall Needed to Avoid Dry Summer

This seems strange when the Shawsheen river looks full and like it has yet to crest, but there you have it.

I’m thinking of the Lorax today.

Subject: More Rainfall Needed to Avoid Dry Summer

Date: April 24, 2012 6:00:00 AM EDT

The National Weather Services declared a flood watch for Philadelphia and surrounding counties from 6 p.m. Saturday through early Monday morning.

Fire Chief Michael Mansfield said the recent rainfall has certainly made fire conditions safer but several more inches are needed before this rainfall dries up in order to avoid a possible rash of forest fires this summer.

“The significant rain that we had is very welcome. But we’re still below our averages,” said Mansfield.

The lack of a snow pack this year combined with dry weather has made the possibility for wildfires much greater in the coming months. The hurricane and October snowstorm also provided increased amounts of dead branches on the forest floor, making more fuel for wildfires.

Open burning ends on May 1 but residents may be able to burn at times this week with the help of the recent rain. Check with theFire Department before burning to ensure burning is allowed that day.

But unless several more inches of rainfall come before this rain dries up, it will do nothing to quell the larger issue of a dry summer, and a possible rash of brush and forest fires.

Mansfield said this rain can be dried up with several hot days in a row and bring back dry conditions. High air temperatures, low humidity and high wind are the three factors that will exacerbate the dry conditions caused by a lack of rainfall.

The chief said that if the region does not receive the rainfall it needs within the late spring and early summer, area residents can expect the danger of significant wildfires this summer.

“This [the recent rainfall] certainly helps but we’re not anywhere out of the woods so to speak,” said Mansfield.

When are people going to accept the evidence for climate change?

inothernews:

Yesterday, no fewer than 95 tornadoes across nine states were reported to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which tracks storms across the U.S. To put that in context, consider this from the New York Times: “The storm systems stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and were so wide that an estimated 34 million people were at risk for severe weather… At one point, the storms were coming so fast that as many as four million people were within 25 miles of a tornado.”

Author, Environmentalist Bill McKibben at Endicott College Feb 9th 7pm

icancstructures:

Bill McKibben at Endicott College 2/9 @ 7 pm

icancstructures:

What on Eaarth Revised Flyer 1.pdf Download this file

Photograph courtesy Russell Watkins, U.K. Department for International Development
Trees shrouded in ghostly cocoons line the edges of a submerged farm field in the Pakistani village of Sindh, where 2010’s massive floods drove millions of spiders an possibly other insects into the trees to spin their webs.
Beginning last July, unprecedented monsoons dropped nearly ten years’ worth of rainfall on Pakistan in one week, swelling the country’s rivers. The water was slow to recede, creating vast pools of stagnant water across the countryside. (See pictures of the Pakistan flood.)
“It was a very slow-motion kind of disaster,” said Russell Watkins, a multimedia editor with the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID), the organization tasked with managing Britain’s overseas aid programs.
According to Watkins, who photographed the trees during a trip to Pakistan last December, people in Sindh said they’d never seen this phenomenon before the flooding.
(See pictures: “World’s Biggest, Strongest Spider Webs Found.”)
As for what exactly had spun the webs, Watkins said: “There wasn’t a scientific analysis of this being done. Anecdotally, I think it was pretty much any kind arachnid species, possibly combined with other insects.
“It was largely spiders,” he added. “Certainly, when we were there working, if you stood under one of these trees, dozens of small, very, very tiny spiders would just be dropping down onto your head.”
Editor’s note: Corrected November 30, 2011, after it came to our attention that it’s not certain that all the silk pictured was spun by spiders.
—Ker Than
Updated November 30, 2011

(via Pictures: Trees Cocooned in Webs After Flood)

Photograph courtesy Russell Watkins, U.K. Department for International Development

Trees shrouded in ghostly cocoons line the edges of a submerged farm field in the Pakistani village of Sindh, where 2010’s massive floods drove millions of spiders an possibly other insects into the trees to spin their webs.

Beginning last July, unprecedented monsoons dropped nearly ten years’ worth of rainfall on Pakistan in one week, swelling the country’s rivers. The water was slow to recede, creating vast pools of stagnant water across the countryside. (See pictures of the Pakistan flood.)

“It was a very slow-motion kind of disaster,” said Russell Watkins, a multimedia editor with the U.K.’s Department for International Development (DFID), the organization tasked with managing Britain’s overseas aid programs.

According to Watkins, who photographed the trees during a trip to Pakistan last December, people in Sindh said they’d never seen this phenomenon before the flooding.

(See pictures: “World’s Biggest, Strongest Spider Webs Found.”)

As for what exactly had spun the webs, Watkins said: “There wasn’t a scientific analysis of this being done. Anecdotally, I think it was pretty much any kind arachnid species, possibly combined with other insects.

“It was largely spiders,” he added. “Certainly, when we were there working, if you stood under one of these trees, dozens of small, very, very tiny spiders would just be dropping down onto your head.”

Editor’s note: Corrected November 30, 2011, after it came to our attention that it’s not certain that all the silk pictured was spun by spiders.

—Ker Than

Updated November 30, 2011

(via Pictures: Trees Cocooned in Webs After Flood)

What the paleoclimate record tells us is that the dangerous level of global warming is less than what we thought a few years ago,” Hansen said. “The target that has been talked about in international negotiations for 2 degrees of warming is actually a prescription for long-term disaster.

“

—	Climate scientist James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (via caraobrien)

I, for one, am supremely disappointed at the prospect of the U.S. missing out on an entire episode of the critically acclaimed series, especially based on the worthless reasoning that “it’s controversial.” Controversy is good. Controversy begets conversation and progress. If Attenborough does come off as alarmist, allow people the opportunity to interpret that on their own, and others to respond to it in turn. I can’t think of a worse way to handle the situation than to not air it at all.

“

—

David Attenborough on the U.S. censorship of the Discovery Chanel’s episode on climate change.

More at io9

(via climateadaptation)

You can’t have a conversation about climate change if you … well, refuse to have a conversation at all.

(via jtotheizzoe)

“You can’t have a conversation about climate change if you … well, refuse to have a conversation at all.”

That’s not a bug, that’s a feature.

(via lord-kitschener)

saveplanetearth:

Guardian Photo Gallery (18 pics) ~ Durban climate change conference in pictures: week one: The UN climate talks get under way at Inkosi albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban

Michael Jacobs @ Guardian ~ UN climate talks see ‘delayer countries’ throw away the 2C goal: The goal of holding global warming to 2C will be missed if the world’s largest economies insist on delaying negotiations

Kumi Naidoo @ Greenpeace Climate Rescue Blog ~ Sweat, EU vs. US on Science, and a Movie - Durban

saveplanetearth:

Today, activists at the UN Climate Talks in Durban are joining with Island Nation Ambassadors to “Rally for Survival”. As Big Polluters try & delay a new climate treaty until 2020, we need to join the calls for bold action NOW @ 350.org