People living in the north-central section of the United States have been treated to earlier hints of spring, according to findings of T.J. Blasing and colleagues in ORNL's Environmental Sciences Division. Over the last 25 years, the rapid temperature increases typical of late winter are occurring about a week earlier than they had before 1975. Blasing's data shows a decrease in the number of bitter cold high-pressure systems moving from western Canada into a region bounded by Manitoba, Canada, to Nebraska and Michigan to Montana in mid- to late February. This change may not be closely linked to global warming, but it could be related to the thermal state of the north Pacific Ocean surface, Blasing said. The research, funded by the Department of Energy's Office of Science, was published in Geophysical Research Letters (Volume 30, No. 9).
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