There’s no sign of winter weather in sight, forecasters say. December in New Jersey will continue to be warmer than normal with little chance that cold winter temperatures and snow will be here before January, said David Robinson, New Jersey’s state climatologist… “I’d be awfully surprised if we end up on the cold end of the ledger this month,” Robinson said. “Once we get to the New Year, I’d expect we’d see some cold and occasional snow. But I don’t think it’s going to happen in December.” Dec. 1 is the first day of what’s known as the meteorological winter, which is what weather scientists and climatologists consider the first day of winter based on months with similar weather patterns. The average daytime temperatures in the first week of December range from 47 to 49 degrees, according to 1981 to 2010 daily norms from the Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist at Rutgers University.
Archives for 2015
How Did the 2015 Hurricane Season Compare to Predictions?
Prior to the start of the 2015 hurricane season, meteorologists and weather researchers predicted the strong El Nino conditions out in the Pacific would likely reduce the number of hurricanes and tropical storms developing in the Atlantic this year… Eleven named storms formed in the Atlantic Ocean this year – one less than average. Just four of those storms strengthened into hurricanes, below the typical average of six to seven. And no hurricanes ended up making landfall along the eastern seaboard, which was great news for New Jersey… “It was a very quiet season this year,” said David Robinson, the state climatologist at Rutgers University… Even though ocean temperatures in the Atlantic were warmer than average, and hurricanes tend to thrive in warmer water, the storms that formed in 2015 “tended to be on the weaker side and short-lived,” Robinson said.
Rutgers Opens Food, Nutrition and Health Center
The New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health (IFNH) is now open on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick, N.J., to focus on ways to prevent childhood obesity and obesity-related disorders such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer — especially relevant in New Jersey, which has one of the highest childhood obesity rates in the nation. Peter Gillies, Ph.D., founding director of the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, discusses its work in a video posted on the institute’s website… It is envisioned as an interdisciplinary research center for Rutgers scholars, policymakers, students, and parents to advance, educate, and promote issues of nutrition and wellness. “Overall, our mission is to make New Jersey that healthy state and a model for the nation,” Gillies says in the video. “We believe that now is the time, and the institute is the place, to build a culture of health in our society.”
Prof. Tamar Barkay Named AAAS Fellow
Tamar Barkay, distinguished professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology, is one of two Rutgers professors recently elevated to the rank of fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The world’s largest general scientific society, AAAS selects its fellows based on their efforts in advancing science or fostering applications considered scientifically […]
Education, Engagement And Access Are The Pillars Of Getting School Kids To Eat More Produce
This article features Jennifer Shukaitis, MPH of the Department of Family and Community Health Services at Rutgers Cooperative Extension… FoodCorps is a national nonprofit that operates in 17 states and Washington, DC. The organization works by putting FoodCorps members into schools to help connect kids from preschool to 12th grade with real food… “There are three pillars of the program. One is knowledge, which is the food education piece. The second is engagement. This involves hands-on gardening and teaching kids where food comes from. Third is access to fresh food, which we do with farm-to-school programs to boost the amount of fresh healthy foods served like fruits and vegetables,” said Shukaitis.
How to Slow Climate Change With a Fake Volcano
There’s a cheap, quick, dirty, and controversial way to combat global warming that isn’t on the agenda of the United Nations climate summit in Paris, which runs from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11. It involves replicating the planet-cooling effect of a volcanic eruption. When Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew in 1991, its emissions briefly reversed most of the global warming that had occurred since the start of the Industrial Revolution… Rutgers University climatologist Alan Robock is highly skeptical of what he sees as tinkering on a planetary scale. Robock, 66, is a onetime Peace Corps volunteer whose website features pictures of himself braving the cold in Antarctica and posing with Fidel Castro in Cuba. The late Edward Lorenz, a pioneer of chaos theory, was Robock’s adviser on his Ph.D. thesis in meteorology at MIT. Robock’s list of 26 downsides to geoengineering ranges from the vital (“whose hand is on the thermostat?”) to eye of the beholder (“affect stargazing”)… Strangely, Keith and Robock wrote a paper together last year with other authors and agree on much of the basic science. Where they disagree is on how to weigh costs and benefits. Without singling out Robock, Keith says many scientists are exaggerating the risks because they don’t trust the world’s governments to handle such a powerful instrument.
Do Alabama’s Restaurant Preferences For Local Translate To Other States, Especially The Garden State?
The Ideation Fresh Foodservice Forum has become an important part of the New York Produce show and Conference with operators, distributors, producers all joining together to find ways to boost produce consumption and bring us closer to the USDA goal of half the plate being accounted for by fruits and vegetables… So when we heard that a new hire at Rutgers had brought with her some research tying together produce farmers and independent restaurants we signed her up quick and we asked Carol Bareuther, Contributing Editor at Pundit sister publication PRODUCE BUSINESS to find out more: “When I got hired here at Rutgers, the department head called in. Because I’m an assistant professor with Rutgers, I’m on a tenure clock, and he said at the time, I think it would be best for you to wait until January, because if you start in November, it means your tenure clock has already started, so you’ll be behind. I know you want to start, and you want the income. And I said this is not why I really want to do extension. It’s not about the income. I just want to get started right away interacting with the farmers,” said Kenesha Reynolds-Allie, Agricultural Agent with New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station at Rutgers University.
It’s Easy to Confuse Thanksgiving, Christmas Cacti
This article was written by Lisa Chiariello, Master Gardener Coordinator for Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Sussex County… There are actually two different species of the genus Schlumbergera which flower in November and December that are found as h…
High Unemployment Stresses South Jersey Food Bank
Gary Howard never envisioned himself needing help from a food bank, but that changed in February. Howard, 61, of Egg Harbor Township, lost his job in receiving when the Showboat Casino closed in September 2014. With his unemployment benefits coming to an end, he had to do something… And that has led to a strain on the Community FoodBank of New Jersey-Southern Branch, which is struggling to meet an 11 percent increase in demand,” said Evelyn Benton, executive director of the food bank branch… The numbers are grim: Rutgers University’s “Rutgers against Hunger” report found that 77 percent of emergency food clients in the state said they’ve had to chose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel. That’s up from 40 percent in 2006… Similar increases were found in other decisions: 70 percent of respondents said they had to choose between food and paying rent, while 73 percent had to choose between food and medicine.
GARDENER STATE: N.J.’s Newest Ambassador Named
This article was written by Nicholas Polanin, associate professor and agricultural agent II at Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station Cooperative Extension of Somerset County… Rebecca Carmeli-Peslak of Millstone Township has been chosen a…
