Cara and I started at 6:30 Detroit time, (5:30 Carbondale) this morning, hoping to get a final bit of field work done.
The bottom fell out as we reached the site, so we retreated to a coffee shop (photos) and watched the Motor City power brokers run in and out with bagels and coffee. The weather news wasn’t good, so we headed home a day early. Six hundred miles through a lot of rain.
This makes about 2,300 miles I’ve done in the last two weeks in confined spaces with either Cara or Jesse, and we’re all still in one piece. We’ve dodged tornadoes* and flooding, I can’t believe we’re not seeing our first year of serious climate change problems.
I’m a lot wiser for this fifty or so hours of conversation, and hope I’m not the only one.
And we accomplished great things, installing a simulated river in Minnesota and mapping a real one in Michigan. I can take a little break now.
*Except that Jesse wants to see a tornado and tried to drive our Em4-loaded truck (along with me) into one south of Champaign.
You wrote, ” can’t believe we’re not seeing our first year of serious climate change problems.”
Can you say a bit more about that?
I do hydrology, not weather, and your question prompted me to do some research. I stand corrected on the tornado issue–this excellent blog at Weather Underground analyzes this year’s severe weather, and it appears the jury is still out (though note the analysis was done back in May, and things have not improved.)
Much more on climate extremes here, including some nice links to recent studies.