I wish I'd seen this earlier Tom. Thanks for posting it. My trees are inside already, so too late for me as I don't fancy carrying them all back out!

Tom, I have been preaching to many for years about the High Pressure out West and the Troth in the East...It's a joke..I have no clue as to why that high can't move more East and give me milder winters...Lucky me. I get the Polar Express almost every week from here out, on the cold side of that High, and who knows, maybe another 10 feet of snow like the year before last...It's frustrating to live in such a cloudy cold colder area and I can do nothing about it..Just suffer or move..I try to make the best of it and if I could afford lights, I would send all my trees along with myself underneath them..lol

Thanks for the info..Being a weather buff, I am always on top of this stuff..It's the very reason why I am getting a very bad drought and lack of storms all summer..(

Do you realize that over here in the North East, we only get about 2 out of ten days of sun during this time? no wonder my trees grow very slowly!

Tom

I can see you have a very good grip on weather and the effects of latitudes and the effect of our planets tilt towards , equal, and away from the sun. Global warming is mostly the slowed down loss of heat from the planets surface. This is much more so where the sun shines at lower levels in the sky farther away from the equator. The loss of heat is a 3 power function to temperature here to the temperature in space. At the equator where temperatures are hot the 3 power multiple drives excess heat out but at the arctic circles temperatures are much colder and the air lacks the temperature differential to push though the extra radiant barrier of the added co2 and the temperatures don't drop as much. This is the overall cause of these longer lasting warm spells as well as earlier spring last frosts.

6b Steve

Steve you might also want to know that the heating of the Polar Regions is the cause for the broken up Polar Air which they call call the piece of that cold air that splits away and hits me more than average the 'Polar Vortex'!! Lucky me..I get that while the rest of the nation swelters...lol I suppose it's good for these plants that need to go dormant since last winter I had a reprieve from the frigid winters and everything I had of perennials and bushes almost died from a lack of freeze and then a warm winter and then a hard freeze once everything woke up early and started growing by February...Lilacs were open by April and then froze solid in a case of ice for 3 days and I lost my Magnolia tree after it flowers then froze solid..It never recovered and then add the drought of 10 inches of rain short. Not a pretty picture...It's messed up..

LOL Steve! You had me laughing with that one! Mike, perhaps in your later lives ;-)

The last hurricane and climate change bringing warmer temps should not be a good thing if you like citrus. Greening is likely to spread further north under these conditions.

Still 2-3 years away from whether or not gene editing works:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/agriculture/uf-research-shows-promise-in-finding-cure-for-citrus-greening/2298398

I also wouldn't call this bizarre weather but the new norm.

I definitely have never seen a year like this. Here in Winnipeg Canada we usually get our first killer frost at the end of September/early October with snow on the ground late October/early November but not this year. Its November 3rd and we have yet to have a low below 0°C/32°F. Temperatures this weekend are forecast to be in the high teens with no lows predicted to drop below 0°C for the next two weeks! Normal temps for this time of year are High 3°C Low -6°C. We have delicate flowers still blooming in the flower bed and my Concord grape vine's leaves are turning yellow for the first time ever (they usually freeze and drop dark green). Its gonna hurt when the polar vortex makes its first appearance.

Laura,

I feel your pain. I finally invested in a dolly this year and it has paid for itself (figuratively...) when it comes to moving my extremely large trees! You might want to give it some thought... especially given the extensive collection you have! ;)

Mike,

There are a lot of factors at play when it come to large-scale patterns like that. Sometimes it can be warmer waters in a different part of the ocean thousands of miles away, or even a simple matter of shrinking ice cover in the arctic. Meteorologists like to call those "teleconnections" because something seemingly innocuous in one part of the world can have drastic consequences far away. Example of this include the Arctic Oscillation Index, El Niño, La Nina, the North American Oscillation, and others. A lot of it depends on your proximity relative to geographic features, too. On the plus side, at least your plants don't sunburn as easily under cloudy skies, and it makes neeming less dangerous!

Steve,

The effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere is relatively minor by itself. Unfortunately, even a slight warming of the atmosphere causes a logarithmic increase in the amount of water vapor (the major greenhouse gas) the atmosphere can contain, so the effects of carbon dioxide and methane are amplified by proxy. I am hesitant to directly attribute the effects of global warming to a resulting shift in circulation patterns; rather, they affect the planet by slowly altering sea ice cover, precipitation, and ocean temperature distributions. Those shifts in the thermodynamic budget are the real sources of pattern changes.

If you're talking about radiative emission, it's actually a fourth-power relationship as defined by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. The differential you describe is the Hadley cell. If you're thinking of something different, let me know!

A J,

I agree that is a problem if you're in a location that is vulnerable to HLB. I should have done a better job of directing this discussion to the "northern North America", where HLB isn't a problem because ACP can't survive our winters. Global warming or not, the northern North America will still have killing freezes every year, taking care of these bugs and dashing our hopes of growing citrus trees in-ground without additional protection. HLB is a travesty that should never have happened in this country, but
sadly, people were not educated about the risks of importing
contaminated budwood. Insects are one thing--they can sneak across on
ships, for example--but plant viruses only arrive here by deliberate
act, oversight or not. You're right though, bizarre weather is becoming the new norm.

TheRiGuy,

It's strange, but at least someone benefits from it in the short term! Don't get too comfortable, though... while global warming is a reality, we're bound to have some cold years too. Enjoy it nonetheless!

-Tom

Tom Its been 34 years since I have seen the equations. While water vapor holds in more heat it also blocks heat from reaching the surface. I talked to my senator and house reps at the state and US level and explained the need to time air travel so the Planes' com trails would be there to block daytime radiate energy but would dissipate by night fall so more heat could escape at night.Is a Fact that tjhe com trails have a significant effect on temperature. This was measure in degrees F following 9-11 grounding of all planes. It is also fact that Planes flying in a higher plain have a larger impact.

6b Steve

P.S. I got laughed out of Columbus and Washington on that one.

My point was without cold to keep HLB contained to where it is now, it will spread further North. Another state closer to you = greater chance an idiot will be able to bring infected citrus plants to your area. Granted frost may kill it, but all it takes is one bite during future warming fall/winters. Warmer winters = way more people attempting to grow citrus. "Hey my brother in law in Florida has citrus, I'll attempt to graft cuttings when I get back home in Maine using his cuttings."

For the people up North that want warmer temps, I'll gladly switch places.

HLB carried by ACP ============== AIDS carried by misquotes.

Aren't we so lucky

Steve, when I was in grad school I saw a talk about that paper you discussed regarding the grounded planes during 9-11. I remember it scared me.

We will be unseasonably warm for the next week as well and I am loving it! It's still too cold at night though for my trees to be out so they are staying inside. I may bring them out this weekend and do another Hort oil spray though.

Riguy you got super lucky missing that foot of snow I got in early October. If that hadn't hit lol my garden stuff would still be growing too. You are right we have totally avoided any really hard freezes so far. Huge fan over here!!

Steve,

Sorry they laughed you out! You're right, water vapor does indeed hold and prevent some from reaching the surface. It also does a very good job of radiating heat back to the surface in the absence of solar heating. Unfortunately, I don't think people are keen on postponing their flights until the evening in order to reduce regional warming!

A J,

It all depends on the scale we're talking about. Yeah, warmer winters will mean the HLB can spread further north via ACP, but not by a ton. We're only talking about a few degrees Celsius overall. The north will still see plenty of snow in our lifetimes. Unfortunately, currently marginal territories for ACP will become vulnerable, so you are correct there.

Yeah, there's the odd chance that some idiot brings a tree from the southern US up here with viable ACP eggs/insects on an HLB-infected tree. That tree will eventually die, and the ACP probably won't live very long given the low citrus density. I don't mean to discount the danger that ACP and HLB bring, but for those of us that live in territories far removed from ACP/HLB, the risks are minor. This is especially true given most of us northerners are inept at keeping citrus alive for more than a couple years in pots...

-Tom