Glenn Rivers
EF1
Recent reasearch about agricultural practices in the upper Midwest have indicated that since the 1950's there has been a huge increase in acreage of Corn and Soybeams at the expense of Wheat, Pasture and other rural land use types. (See Sandstrom et al (2004), Physical Geography vol 25, No 3, pp. 191-207)
Corn and Soybeams extract soil moisture more agressively then many other crops, resulting in more of the daytime heating being used to pump up dew points at the expence of sensible heating. The result has been a statisticaly significant increase in the number of days with extreme dewpoints, but extreme daytime high temps may be supressed.
One might anticipate that more Corn and Soybeams mean stronger CIN and potentialy a more extreme CAPE climatology when cap strength supresses the development of early convection and allows more time for the buildup of extreme theta-e and CAPE.
One has to wonder how this might be effecting the climatology of severe convection in the upper Midwest. Although most strong tornadoes occur north of the Cornbelt in mid-summer, the atmospheric environment promoted by agressively transpiring plants would promote thunderstorms with low LCL's and these storms may be less likely to become outflow dominated as quickly as those occuring in environments with higher dew-point depressions. Is it possible that if storms take longer to become outflow dominant they might have a longer window for tornadogenesis? Many other questions about thunderstorm climatology could be asked
Does anyone have any thoughts on this, this could be an interesting topic.
Corn and Soybeams extract soil moisture more agressively then many other crops, resulting in more of the daytime heating being used to pump up dew points at the expence of sensible heating. The result has been a statisticaly significant increase in the number of days with extreme dewpoints, but extreme daytime high temps may be supressed.
One might anticipate that more Corn and Soybeams mean stronger CIN and potentialy a more extreme CAPE climatology when cap strength supresses the development of early convection and allows more time for the buildup of extreme theta-e and CAPE.
One has to wonder how this might be effecting the climatology of severe convection in the upper Midwest. Although most strong tornadoes occur north of the Cornbelt in mid-summer, the atmospheric environment promoted by agressively transpiring plants would promote thunderstorms with low LCL's and these storms may be less likely to become outflow dominated as quickly as those occuring in environments with higher dew-point depressions. Is it possible that if storms take longer to become outflow dominant they might have a longer window for tornadogenesis? Many other questions about thunderstorm climatology could be asked
Does anyone have any thoughts on this, this could be an interesting topic.
