My worst global warming fear: buckeyes in Ann Arbor
Last week, I blogged about how wintertime minimum temperatures in the U.S. have risen so much in recent decades, that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had to update their Plant Hardiness Zone Map for gardeners for the first time since 1990. The Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. I got to looking at the new zone map for Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I live, and saw how we've shifted one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer. Ann Arbor used to be in Zone 5, but is now solidly in the warmer Zone 6. This got me to wondering, what sort of plants in Zone 6, until now rare or unknown in Ann Arbor, might migrate northwards in coming decades into the city? Then, with a sudden chill, I contemplated a truly awful possibility: The Ohio Buckeye Tree.
Figure 1. Comparison of the 1990 and 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Maps. Image credit: USDA and Arbor Day Foundation.
Buckeyes in Ann Arbor? The Horror!
For those of you unfamiliar the the buckeye tree, it is the emblem of Ohio State University. The Buckeyes of Ohio State have one of the most fierce rivalries in sports with that "school up north", the University of Michigan. As someone who spent twelve years of my life as a student at the University of Michigan, the thought of Buckeye trees in Ann Arbor is not one I care to contemplate. But the USDA Forest Service has published a Climate Change Tree Atlas which predicts that the most favorable habitat for the Ohio Buckeye Tree can be expected to move northwards with a warming climate. While they give their model for the Buckeye Tree a rating of "low reliability", it is nonetheless chilling to contemplate the potential infestation of Ann Arbor with this loathsome invader. I can only sadly predict that to stem the invasion, non-ecologically-minded University of Michigan students will unleash genetically engineered wolverines that eat buckeye seeds.
Figure 2. Potential changes in the mean center of distribution of the Ohio Buckeye tree. The green oval shows the current center of the range of the Buckeye Tree, well to the south of Ann Arbor. In a scenario where humans emit relatively low amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (light blue oval), the most favorable climate for the Buckeye Tree edges into Southern Michigan, and marches into Ann Arbor under the medium and high scenarios for emissions (other ovals.) Image credit: USDA Forest Service Climate Change Tree Atlas.
Libyan snowstorm triggered major Saharan dust storm
On February 6, a rare snow storm hit North Africa, bringing 2 - 3 inches of snow to Tripoli, Libya. It was the first snow in Tripoli since at least 2005, and may be the heaviest snow the Libyan capital has seen since February 6, 1956. The storm responsible for the North African snow also had strong winds that kicked up a tremendous amount of dust over Algeria during the week. This dust became suspended in a flow of air moving to the southwest, and is now over the Atlantic Ocean.
Figure 3. Dust storm on February 7, 2012, off the coast of West Africa, spawned by a storm that brought snow to North Africa on February 6. Note the beautiful vorticies shed by the Cape Verde Islands, showing that the air is flowing northeast to southwest. The red squares mark where fires are burning in West Africa. Image credit: NASA.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and I'll be back Monday with a new post.
Jeff Masters
NO SILLY NOT THE FOOTBALL TEAM .......THE REAL THING
Reader Comments
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You can't fight a war against an ideal. You will lose, no matter how many bombs you throw at it.
Indiscriminate bombing of helpless nations is not only ridiculously inhumane, utterly pointless as well. By your logic, we should never negotiate in hostage situations, just kill them all as it will teach future hostage takers a lesson. I can guarantee that the vast majority of people want to have nothing to do with terrorists, nor particularly enjoy being carpet bombed as a penalty for the crimes of a few rich and powerful psychopathic jackasses.
Fortunately, most world leaders are beyond the tyrannical stage of "Do what I want or I'll bomb you to hell!". That may work in your RTS games, but it is a sick and twisted philosophy in the real world. For fig's sake, they're human beings too.
You can't go around bombing everyone because you can. How would you feel if you were a weaker nation and you kept getting your sovereignty violated because another country didn't like what you were doing inside your borders. It wouldn't be a good feeling at all.
And besides, I can tell you that the Founding Fathers probably didn't envision the United States being an international bully on the scale of the British Empire of the 17-1800s. If China dropped bombs on us for offering asylum to a dissident who didn't agree with us, how would the government react? What could possibly be a good outcome of that situation?
And besides, China is the second most powerful military in the world right now, so saying that if we got into a confrontation with them, they would be a pushover makes no sense. It would be a stalemate and if any side began to get an advantage over another I can tell you that the Communist leaders aover there would not hesitate to use the Bomb on us, because they know that we wouldn't do it first.....
Diplomacy is more complicated than who has the biggest and most bombs and who can use them the best, it's about trying to find peaceful solutions to the problem.
Unfortunately, peaceful solutions to some of our problems with hostile nations are beginning to run out....
What if they ruled entire nation-states, how would you fight them under Geneva Convention?
they use dirty tactics and break every concept of morality and honor, except their own, and they even break that too when it suits their immediate needs. The Koran gives them that command to do so.
Of course, you realize, if Shariah Law-abiding Islam actually was the biggest organization in the world, you and I would be summarily executed, along with just about everyone in the U.S., India, China, the southern half of Africa, and Europe.
The way we do warfare and counter-terrorism in modern times is about as foolish as the redcoats lining up by batallion and company during the revolutionary war.
You don't beat these people by having squads of soldiers patrolling the streets. All that does is give them a target.
We declare a campaign as a "victory" and pretty much didn't even do anything. Probably as many as half the people in office in Iraq are the same people as under Saddam...
A war with China today: US could invade China, but face the same fate of the Germans in the USSR in the 1940s. It would be a long bloody war of attrition that would end in a stalemate. China can't launch an invasion on US soil, and the US wouldn't last a few years on Chinese soil. China has way more manpower at their disposal, and I am 100% sure they would launch live people out of cannons if they had to.
Trending farther north with that system I see...
If War actually meant War,we might not be so eager to enter into one.
And those that oppose us might think twice.
Exactly. China's army is 300 MILLION soldiers strong. If the U.S. instituted a draft of everyone and got the armies of every ally we might be able to get 150 mil. We do have the technological edge and the geographical edge, so those would be a plus.
Army size: China
Technology: U.S.
Geography: U.S.
Will to fight: China
Government: Tie
Sounds very similar to your example of the Nazi invasion of the U.S.S.R. It would be a Stalingrad of epic proportions, and turn into a war of attrition quickly. And guess who has more people and manufacturing and is on the home field? China.
They would send soldiers in like Stalin did: One man with a rifle, one man with a clip of ammo. One dies and the other gets the other part, ammo or weapon.
Although it would probably cause a massive increase in U.S. jobs and manufacturing, solving both of those problems in a week....
Keep in mind our hardiness zone maps are slightly different however in Canada my city was firmly in our zone 3 but I have been growing zone 4 plants for several years.
It may not help you to know that the City of Calgary has been planting Ohio Buckeye trees for a few decades now. Sports rivalries aside I appreciate them for their spring flowers, luxurious leaves and beautiful orange fall colour.
The Russians have their own problems to deal with, and actually Russia is still not friendly with China, and hasn't been since the Cold War. They would probably stay out of it until a winner was emerging.
Do you understand how utterly useless a "manpower" advantage is in modern warfare?
Seriously?
When one ship can level an entire city in a few hours, you think a 5 to 1 manpower advantage matters?
You dont "invade" the other country at all. That's dumb as hell. It offers you nothing to gain, and offers them targets to kill.
Ground units are not needed to win a war. In fact, they're a liability, since all you're doing is offering your enemy soft targets.
Once you destroy the enemy Navy and Airforce(or at least establish air dominance near the coast,) the war is over. You bomb every coastal city and SIT on their ports, and destroy anything that moves....and sit there as long as necessary.
A ground invasion isn't needed, because we have missiles, drones and lasers, and now rail guns. I'm positive the Chinese don't have those yet. We don't need ground recon due to drones and satellites, which can tell the make and model of your car, etc.
We have nuclear power for aircraft carriers, submarines, and most of our other large ships, so fuel is not a problem or concern. We can hold a siege or blockade for TEN YEARS without even refueling some of these vessels.
I believe that China has the geographical advantage in this case.
China could easily retreat a few kilometers per day until pretty much Chengdu/Kunming and still have a large enough output of people and materials to stop the invasion. They have mountains past that point, and could probably use the mountains to a huge advantage. China is also shaped like the USSR in the sense that its long and more than capable of halting an invasion. The US has the advantage that its on the other side of the world, but only until China develops a significant navy.
With the comparison to Germany and USSR in the 40s, the US doesn't use the blitzkreig tactic that the Germans did, so the invasion would likely go much slower and may even fail to reach Beijing before millions of men are forced into trenches to fight a deadly war of attrition.
So then why does infantry exist today then if it is "useless in modern warfare"?
Just made this map in 5 minutes....
Its windy and cold outside
GFS took all precipitation out of my forecast in the 180hr forecast
Ask our braindead commanders.
Really, it's because of Geneva Convention.
Since we handcuff ourselves, we need men to go search house to house for terrorists and other war criminals in order to "arrest" them and bring them to trial, which is not only ridiculous, but insane, since this gives up all of the technological advantages gained by the navy and air power.
In short, our military strategists are both out-dated and handcuffed by international law which is not up-to-date with dealing with situations such as suicide bombing terrorists, and the two-faced nature of Islam.
"We're on your side," they say, but really we know they support the terrorist, we just can't "prove" it...
Then you end up having to give enemy combatants more rights than your own citizens and soldiers, again, due to Geneva convention.
But what I said was correct.
JASMINE
Local NWS here in Lincoln, IL has says the system will be weakening and becoming an open wave as it passes by. Still early at least, they wont know for sure until cyclogenesis forms east of the Rockies, although they said the mid levels of this particular system is quit weak. I'd be tickled pink if we could just get a good 3-6 inch snow event. I've measured 4.5" total from about 4 different 1 inch storms this season here in my locale, typical average for us is 25 inches. ..sigh...
Maybe not
I seen some cumulus clouds today.
DId i mention it was cold outside?
that's it! you got it
We have more and better nuclear subs....
so is it cold in china too? how has your weather today been? i dont know about you, but its been cold here!
ssshhhhhhhhh....
let me tell you how cold its been today xD
Military Manpower Available: 145,212,012 U.S. 749,610,775 China
Aircraft Carriers: 11 U.S. 1 China
Submarines: 75 U.S. 63 China
Total Aircraft: 18,234 U.S. 5,176 China
THUNDERSNOW?!
Like a carbon copy of my reaction.
I have a friend who has war simulation software. He inputs the military data for the nations and then runs 1000 sims, slightly changing a few factors each time. U.S. beats china 87% of the time, and 13% of the time in less than a month.
Great movie, have it play tic tac toe.
They have about 70 combat ships, and 1 aircraft carrier.
guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/22/china-submarines -foreign-relations
The U.S. has roughly 600 combat ships and 12 active carriers, I think.
"The U.S. has 43 Los Angeles-class submarines on active duty and 19 retired" - Wikipedia.
A war against China in 2000: The US collectively kicks itself in the walnuts and sentences nearby allies to death.
A war against China today: The US collectively kicks itself in the walnuts and sentences nearby allies to death.
The chances of the US going to war with China: Less than zero. There is nothing to be gained by doing so and absolutely everything to lose.
Never get involved in a land war in Asia. Especially when a key ally is parked less than a 1000 miles away of said country who has a lot of bad blood leftover from the previous war.
Even if they did, no way they could hang with us. Best equipment, best soldiers, best logistic capabilities, and best generals/admrials.
nooooope!
Special Statement
Statement as of 5:09 PM EST on February 11, 2012
... An Arctic blast will bring strong winds and cold...
The arrival of an Arctic blast this evening will bring strong
northwest winds. Winds this evening will gust up to 40 to 45 mph.
As temperatures tumble... the wind will make it feel as if it were
in the single numbers to around 10 degrees at times late tonight
and Sunday morning. The actual temperature will drop to 20 to 25
degrees overnight.
Not much of a temperature recovery is expected on Sunday. The
Mercury will struggle to reach above 40 degrees and for much of
the day it will feel as if it is below freezing. The incoming air
mass will also be very dry with afternoon relative humidity around
20 percent.
Any loose objects outside should be secured to prevent them from
being damaged. Exposed plumbing will be susceptible to freezing
and preventative measures are suggested to prevent damage.
Rjd
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