Next meeting of the Smoky Mountain Chapter of the American Meteorological Society
November 23rd
We'll plan to meet first around 5:45 PM for dinner at Calhouns on the River. Please RSVP Jesse Miller if you plan to attend dinner, so he can get a head count for the restaurant. We'll then go to our usual meeting place on the UT Ag campus (see below for directions) for the feature presentation starting around 7:30 PM. Dale Kaiser (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) will speak about "Reconstruction of False Spring Occurrence over the Southeastern U.S., 1901-2007: Increasing Risk of Spring Freeze Damage?". The following is an abstract of his talk:
"Near-record warmth over much of the United States during March 2007 promoted early growth of crops and vegetation. A widespread arctic air outbreak followed in early April, resulting in extensive agricultural losses over the southeastern U.S. This ‘false spring’ event also resulted in widespread damage to newly grown tissues of native deciduous forest species, shown by previous researchers to have affected the terrestrial carbon cycle. The current study reconstructed the historical occurrence of false springs for the southeastern U.S. (32-39 °N; 75-98 °W) from 1901–2007 using daily maximum and minimum temperature records from 176 stations in the Global Historical Climatology Network database, and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data derived from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite observations. A false spring index was introduced that examined the relative timing of the start of the growing season (SGS), or leaf emergence, to the timing of a potentially damaging last hard freeze (? -2.2 °C). SGS was modeled for the domain by combining EVI data with ground-based temperature ‘degree-day’ calculations reflecting the rate of springtime warming. No significant area-wide, long-term SGS trend was found (0.2 days later/decade; p = 0.3). However, the timing of the last hard freeze did occur significantly later (> 1 day/decade; p < 0.05) over a contiguous region stretching from Mississippi eastward to the Carolinas. False spring risk also was found to be increasing over the same area, although a domain-averaged trend showed no change in risk since 1901. These results illustrate the complexity of observed climate change over the last century. In a generally warming world, the character of temperature changes in some regions does not result in decreasing risk of false spring, and may in fact pose increased risk if occurring during vulnerable plant growth stages."
Meetings are usually held in Room 160 of the Plant Biotech Building (2505 E.J. Chapman Dr.) on the Ag campus of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Directions are:
On Neyland Drive along the Tennessee River (if traveling south from Kingston Pike), go under the Alcoa Highway bridge and turn left on Joe Johnson Drive (the 2nd stoplight after the bridge).
Go north on Joe Johnson Drive to Chapman Drive (the second street up from the stoplight; right before the road crosses a bridge). The Plant Biotech Bldg. will be a brand new building with purple trim on the southwest side of the corner of Joe Johnson Dr. and Chapman Dr.
Turn left on Chapman Dr. and go up the hill and turn right into Staff Parking Lot #60. This is where you can park. You'll need to get a parking pass from Joanne Logan (usually the night of the meeting) to make sure that you don't get ticketed (even at night).
As you walk back down the hill to the Plant Biotech Bldg., there will be a main entrance with Room 160 one of the first rooms you encounter from the entrance.
