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Picture of the month ...

June 2011: Climate Extremes or Climate Change? The Southwest of the U.S. had a rather unusual winter and spring. In Reno, November 2010 was exceptionally cold, January 2011 exceptionally warm, February exceptionally cold, March April and May exceptionally wet and mostly colder than normal. As a result, the desert hills west of Reno show a hue of green early in June (the picture was taken on June 8, 2011) that is richer than the green seen at any time during a "normal" spring. In June, the hills normally are just brown and burned. In 2011, snow cover is higher, and snow levels are lower than normal, and late snow is frequent. In a "normal" year, in June no snow would be visible anywhere in the picture.

Of course, all of this could just be a normal, though extreme fluctuation. However, the extremes on the opposite ends of the spectrum are chasing each other, and this strong increase in variability, this change in the frequency of occurrence of extremes makes me worry. As Kevin Trenberth pointed out at a recent meeting, changes are more visible in the extremes than in the mean values. And the statistics of extremes in local climate in the Reno area and elsewhere seem to be changing for sure. Many opportunities to take pictures that are out of the normal time sequences. Like last month's picture of the month.


Hans-Peter Plag, all rights reserved.

If you have a story, thought, or picture worth to be considered as story, thought or picture of the month, please feel free to inform me about it by sending an e-mail to hpplag@unr.edu.