Skip to main content

MN Climatologist will present in Brainerd on April 20th

Department of Natural Resources Senior Climatologist Dr. Kenny Blumenfeld's will make a presentation at Central Lakes College's Chalberg Theater on Monday, April 20.  The presentation, on climate, change will begin at noon and is a free event open to the public.

Dr. Blumenfeld talked in New Ulm last year. Below are a few paragraphs, from the New Ulm Journal, summarizing that presentation.


“It’s really the lowest temperatures that are increasing the fastest,” Blumenfeld said. “Especially winter-time nights with the coldest nights. That’s where we’re seeing the most warming.”

Blumenfeld said this rapid loss of cold extremes in Minnesota may be projected to continue if weather pattern trends match data collected from each decade.

According to data collected in Minnesota since 1970, Blumenfeld said there’s been an average of a 1.2 degree Fahrenheit increase in winter temperatures per decade. The data also showed that average summer temperatures have increased by .09 degrees per decade since 1970. Blumenfeld said the data demonstrates that winter has been warming 13 percent faster than summer.

However, this isn’t necessarily cause for immediate concern, he said. He said that any dramatic change in Minnesota’s climate won’t happen until between 2040 and 2055.

“For the next 20 years it looks like we’re faring better than other places,” he said. “That’s when we’ll see a difference climatologically.”
------------
The following graphs are of minimum and maximum temperatures measured at the Long Prairie, MN weather station from 1900 to 2010. The graphs were developed by Steve and Nancy Potter who are National Weather Service observers in Long Prairie. They bear out Blumenthal's broader observations. As you can see, the annual minimum in 1900 was just over 28F and by 2010 it was slightly above 32F. So, for more than a century winters have increasingly been less cold. On the other hand, annual maximum temperatures are up just over one degree F.



WARNING: The short term trends are no cause to relax our efforts to reduce green house gas emissions. 

Tim



Central Minnesota Central

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Let us all walk in the foot steps of John Lewis

By John King In Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, John Lewis, standing in the lead of a long line of marchers, looked down from the crest of The Edmund Pettus Bridge at the line of police armed with clubs, whips and truncheons and said, “I am going to die here.” Lewis intended to lead the marchers from Selma to the capital Montgomery, to demand access to voting for Black people in Alabama. Sheriff Jim Clark lowered his gas mask and led the deputies, some on horseback and some on foot, into the line of marchers. Under swinging clubs and hooves trampling, Lewis was the first to go down. Women and children were not spared. Choking and blinded by tear gas, they were struck by clubs and truncheons wrapped with barbed wire. Lewis, with a fractured skull and a severe concussion, almost did die. The nearby Good Samaritan Hospital did not have enough beds to care for the injured marchers. A nation watched in horror as news footage of that bloody day appeared on T...
2 comments
Read more

More Republican dirty tricks

  As a Blue Dog Corporate Democrat, 7th District Rep. Collin Peterson’s votes in Congress go against the beliefs and convictions of progressive voters in our district. I’m one of those progressive 7th District voters. Like most average voters I rarely actually encounter my Member of Congress. However, I recall three encounters with Rep. Peterson over the many years I’ve been stuck with him. I met him at Mikey’s Restaurant, on Main Street in Long Prairie, when he was first campaigning for a seat in Congress. We were both young then and he was full of energy and inspired in me a sense of hope for positive change. Besides, I’d met the Republican incumbent. He was an older man who, it seemed, was operating on dead batteries. I was happy to vote for the energetic Peterson. Some years later I was a delegate to the DFL District convention in Bemidji. Peterson opposed a woman’s right to choose abortion. He was being challenged by a woman who supported the right to that choice. I gave...
Post a Comment
Read more

The bible should rule in the MN Senate, says Majority leader Gazelka

“A lot of my job frankly is stopping the onslaught of the left from continually moving us in a way that we know is contrary to the Bible,” Gazelka told the extremist Christian evangelical leader Andrew Wommack during an interview in November on Truth & Liberty, a weekly extreme right Christian on-line broadcast. Gazelka told Wommack that he is engaged in a spiritual battle as leader of the Minnesota Senate. Wommack in turn told Gazelka that opponents of conservative Christians are with “the spirit of Antichrist. What they call political correctness is nothing but demonic inspired and so … I can get by with stuff maybe you can’t.”  Gazelka didn’t disagree with the extremist opinion that opponents of conservative Christians are with the spirit of the Antichrist. He merely dissembled and claimed he was like Jesus who went among the sinners to convert them. Gazelka has always seen himself as a minister who intends to convert Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Sikhs, Bahai, ...
1 comment
Read more