TJ Blasing

Meet T.J. Blasing, Climatologist

With a grandmother who was a member of the Cheyenne tribe, young T.J. learned “to read the signs.” Was it going to snow? Was it going to be cold overnight? How could he tell?

T.J. didn’t watch wooly worms to tell the weather. He watched the clouds and the wind. He also learned to look for signs that Spring was about to arrive. “When I was young we watched this stuff very carefully, because that meant we were soon gonna get a change of diet -- something we looked forward to after a winter of fruits and vegetables preserved in glass jars.”

He adds, “I grew up in rural Wisconsin. Some years, it was too dry for corn to grow. Farmers lost their crops. I wanted to learn to predict when ‘dry spells’ would happen.” In college, T.J. studied tree rings for clues. Clues about how rainfall amounts in the past varied from year to year. (To learn more about Tree Rings and Drought, click here.)

Now T.J. works at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He and other scientists there are studying “Climate Change”. Is our climate changing? Are we going to have warmer winters or drier summers?

Above is a picture of Dr. Blasing with a colleague, Dale Kaiser, and a student, Daria Scott. They published a scientific article together about Spring coming earlier. On the screen is a weather map (and Daria has another map in her hand) showing some of the unusual weather patterns seen when spring arrives earlier. Dr. Blasing’s advice to students interested in studying climate change? “Take all the math and science courses you can!”

If Spring is arriving earlier, wouldn’t that be a nice change? “Maybe not,” says T.J. “What if bats wake up and come out of their winter hibernation caves before there are enough insects for them to eat? What if songbirds lay eggs before there are enough caterpillars to feed the baby birds?

T.J. also studies how burning lots of coal may be changing our climate. Most of our electricity in Tennessee comes from burning coal. We depend on electricity too much to suddenly just stop burning coal. But a lot of our electricity is wasted. “Weatherizing” your home and using fluorescent light bulbs are easy ways to save electricity, and money. And you might even help save bats and songbirds!

Last updated on January 25, 2006