Cloud Watcher Weather Watch: 3. Climate

Grand Island is a mid-sized city in the central area of Nebraska. Originally named La Grande Island by French fur traders, Grand Island is in an area that resembled an island where the Wood River joins the Platte River. The first settlement was in 1857 by German immigrants from Davenport Iowa who believed that Grand Island was the actual “center” of the United States, and they hoped that Grand Island would become the nation’s capital for that reason. Of course, this never happened, but they were close; the actual center of the United States is Lebanon, Kansas which is only 85 miles away.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

3. Climate

Grand Island is located in a region of the United States known as the Great Plains. There are no mountains or elevation factors. The weather in this area is determined by the fronts due to the cold dry air masses from the north meeting with the humid warm air masses from the Gulf of Mexico. Locally, Grand Island is influenced by its proximity to the Platte River and several other smaller streams. This increases the humidity and gives Grand Island some radiation fog during the early autumn months. Another factor locally is the land use around Grand Island. The land is primarily used for agricultural purposes with irrigation; this increase the humidity of the region, and seasonally, also affects the albedo.

Land Use for Grand Island
http://gisdata.usgs.gov/website/mrlc/viewer.htm

Temperatures for January and July for Grand Island Nebraska are graphed below for the years 1952 to 2011.

There does not appear to be any noticeable change in temperature trends for this time period.

Grand Island is classified as Dwa in the Koppen Geiger Climate Classification System. This means that Grand Island is continental humid with distinct seasonality with winter as the dry season. The following climograph displays this.

Data for the graphs was obtained from the National Climatic Data Center (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov).

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Drought resistance is the goal, but methods differ

By Andrew Pollack

Published: Thursday, October 23, 2008

GRAND ISLAND, Nebraska — To satisfy the world's growing demand for food, scientists are trying to pull off a genetic trick that nature itself has had trouble accomplishing in millions of years of evolution. They want to create varieties of corn, wheat and other crops that can thrive with little water.

As the world's population expands and global warming alters weather patterns, water shortages are expected to hold back efforts to grow more food. People drink only a quart or two of water every day, but the food they eat in a typical day, including plants and meat, requires 2,000 to 3,000 quarts to produce.

Monsanto, the biggest crop biotechnology company, says its first drought-tolerant corn will reach farmers in only four years and will provide a 10 percent increase in yields in states like Nebraska and Kansas that tend to get less rainfall than eastern parts of the Corn Belt.

At a recent farm show here called Husker Harvest Days, a few thousand farmers were guided past a small plot on which Monsanto had grown its drought-tolerant corn next to a similar variety without the "drought gene." A transparent tent had shielded the plants from any rain through the hot Nebraska summer.

The results were, to be sure, less than miraculous. Both the drought-tolerant and the comparison plants were turning brown and shriveling, and they were about three feet shorter than the lush green irrigated corn growing nearby. But the drought-tolerant plants, which also contained a second gene to protect their roots from a pest, were a little greener and a few inches taller than the comparison plants, and their cobs were missing fewer kernels.

Monsanto said the improvement was significant. And the Nebraska and Kansas farmers who toured Monsanto's plot, many of them facing water-use restrictions and soaring pumping costs for irrigation, said any improvement would be welcome.

"Drought tolerance to me is the most critical entry point," said Calestous Juma, a professor of international development at Harvard who has advised African governments on biotechnology. "This is kind of reopening the window for genetic modification."

In many areas, lack of water is the biggest limiting factor, and supplies of water for irrigation could be reduced further in coming years in order to supply more water to growing cities and proliferating factories.

Global warming is also expected to lead to drier conditions and more frequent droughts in some parts of the world. Scientists at Stanford, for instance, have projected that corn yields in southern Africa could drop 25 percent by 2030 because of warmer, drier weather.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/business/worldbusiness/23iht-23drought.17184603.html?pagewanted=all

Cloud Watcher Weather Watch

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

3. Climate

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National Weather Service Forecast

Consequences of Drought

Grand Island Tornado 1980