Extreme Weather Impacts on Agriculture

[PhillipS]

A favorite denialist theme is that agriculture will benefit from climate change - higher temperatures will increase the length of the growing season, a longer growing season will increase crop yields, higher CO2 levels will stimulate plant growth, blah, blah, blah.

Of course the real world doesn't indicate as rosy a future. Farming and ranching has always been uncertain, where a single stroke of bad weather can destroy months of hard work. Those of us in Texas last year saw the effects of the drought that caused an estimated 5 - 7 billion in agricultural damage. It's a truism that famines are triggered by bad weather. Sure, poor land use practices can set the stage - as we saw in the US during the Dust Bowl - but extreme heat, drought, floods and storms can wreak havoc with a region's or a nation's food supply.

News reports are, of course, anecdotal but they can give real-time look at developing problems in advance of a formal research assessment. Below are some of the recent headlines on the 2012 weather's negative effect on agriculture. For those readers who say the list isn't fair and balanced - if you can find reports of enhanced or record harvests due to this year's weather then please share them with us. A search of Google News for the phrase "record harvest" did not turn up much. Australia may have a record mango crop, the Philippines is hoping for a good rice harvest, and Nepal is predicting a record harvest though, oddly, the article doesn't say of what.

Here's some of the bad new:

In North America:

Michigan's apple crop

will be about 90% smaller than usual this year because of spring weather damage.

Drought hammers food output

.

The global corn market

may see 60 million metric tons “disappearing” as drought cuts the U.S. harvest

U,S, Crops

bake in searing heat, no relief for weeks - this was interesting to me because it talks about low river levels impacting barge traffic, so even what the farmers do manage to harvest they can't easily get to market.

Corn Crop

shrinking by the Hour

Ontario's Corn Crop

withers under Drought

Drought

in Central, Eastern Canada baking Crops

And around the World:

Ukraine's corn crop

may be between 20 million and 22 million metric tons after drought hurt yields in the country’s south, the national weather forecaster said.

Serbia’s corn harvest

may be halved this year because of drought

Poor Rains

likely to reduce India's Rice Crop

There is a lot more related news on the internet but you get the picture.

[rygar]

A favorite denialist theme is that agriculture will benefit from climate change - higher temperatures will increase the length of the growing season, a longer growing season will increase crop yields, higher CO2 levels will stimulate plant growth, blah, blah, blah.

Of course the real world doesn't indicate as rosy a future. Farming and ranching has always been uncertain, where a single stroke of bad weather can destroy months of hard work. Those of us in Texas last year saw the effects of the drought that caused an estimated 5 - 7 billion in agricultural damage. It's a truism that famines are triggered by bad weather. Sure, poor land use practices can set the stage - as we saw in the US during the Dust Bowl - but extreme heat, drought, floods and storms can wreak havoc with a region's or a nation's food supply.

News reports are, of course, anecdotal but they can give real-time look at developing problems in advance of a formal research assessment. Below are some of the recent headlines on the 2012 weather's negative effect on agriculture. For those readers who say the list isn't fair and balanced - if you can find reports of enhanced or record harvests due to this year's weather then please share them with us. A search of Google News for the phrase "record harvest" did not turn up much. Australia may have a record mango crop, the Philippines is hoping for a good rice harvest, and Nepal is predicting a record harvest though, oddly, the article doesn't say of what.

Here's some of the bad new:

In North America:

Michigan's apple crop

will be about 90% smaller than usual this year because of spring weather damage.

Drought hammers food output

.

The global corn market

may see 60 million metric tons “disappearing” as drought cuts the U.S. harvest

U,S, Crops

bake in searing heat, no relief for weeks - this was interesting to me because it talks about low river levels impacting barge traffic, so even what the farmers do manage to harvest they can't easily get to market.

Corn Crop

shrinking by the Hour

Ontario's Corn Crop

withers under Drought

Drought

in Central, Eastern Canada baking Crops

And around the World:

Ukraine's corn crop

may be between 20 million and 22 million metric tons after drought hurt yields in the country’s south, the national weather forecaster said.

Serbia’s corn harvest

may be halved this year because of drought

Poor Rains

likely to reduce India's Rice Crop

There is a lot more related news on the internet but you get the picture.

Wow, that is a lot to blame on AGW. You forgot the Derecho a few weeks ago too.

[PhillipS]

Wow, that is a lot to blame on AGW. You forgot the Derecho a few weeks ago too.

I'm not blaming it all on AGW - what I'm saying, and perhaps should have expressed better, is that the pseudo-skeptics have been claiming that agriculture will benefit from a warmer climate. I disagree and ask them to show us where agiculture is benefiting. We certainly are warmer than, say, the 1990s so the benefits, if real, should be apparent. So where are they?

As others have pointed out, the 2012 weather we've seen is probably a preview of our future 'normal' weather. If that's true it is not good news.

[SVT450R]

For the US we can blame the -PDO +AMO long term cycles for what we are seeing now and into near future.

http://wwwpaztcn.wr.usgs.gov/julio_pdf/McCabe_ea.pdf

[WeatherRusty]

To little precipitation where it is most needed, to much where it is needed the least. A general, overall increase in world wide precipitation, attending persistent pattern change.

Will modern societies be able to easily adjust over the course of decades of continuous change? Can we easily move agriculture along with changing productivity zones? What if productivity zones cross political boundaries? How does this affect poorer and geographically limited nations with fewer adaptive options?

[WeatherRusty]

For the US we can blame the -PDO +AMO long term cycles for what we are seeing now and into near future.

http://wwwpaztcn.wr....f/McCabe_ea.pdf

Of course you are correct about that, but once again those cycles will ride on top of the longer term pattern changes expected as the overall global circulation pattern adjusts to a warming climate.

[bobbutts]

Good post, to me it says those claims should be looked at with deep skepticism. Of course I'm also skeptical that 2012 was a good preview of future climate change and many other things too.

[csnavywx]

The inherent problem with any temperature increase is that the evaporational increases must be offset by substantial precipitation increases. One might remember that saturation vapor pressure increases exponentially with temperature. This is one key reason why, even with high (70+) dewpoints, extreme heat is very effective at rapidly depleting soil moisture. Even with increased rainfall in some regions, the increase in temperature may be enough to tip the scales in favor of frequent droughts.

My crop of raspberry plants was totally destroyed this year and even if my water sources hadn't totally dried up, the heat stress on those plants would be enough to reduce growth and yields significantly. CO2's effect on plants is just one part of a complex and variable system. If enough necessary elements (sufficient water, optimal/stable temperatures) are removed more frequently as a result of a statistical skew via CO2's effects, then the overall effect was a negative one due to feedbacks. Such is life in a non-linear system.

[Jonger]

The most difficult transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy will be farming.

See how productive these farmers are when they have to start farming with horse drawn tillers again.

Yup.

[Jonger]

The inherent problem with any temperature increase is that the evaporational increases must be offset by substantial precipitation increases. One might remember that saturation vapor pressure increases exponentially with temperature. This is one key reason why, even with high (70+) dewpoints, extreme heat is very effective at rapidly depleting soil moisture. Even with increased rainfall in some regions, the increase in temperature may be enough to tip the scales in favor of frequent droughts.

My crop of raspberry plants was totally destroyed this year and even if my water sources hadn't totally dried up, the heat stress on those plants would be enough to reduce growth and yields significantly. CO2's effect on plants is just one part of a complex and variable system. If enough necessary elements (sufficient water, optimal/stable temperatures) are removed more frequently as a result of a statistical skew via CO2's effects, then the overall effect was a negative one due to feedbacks. Such is life in a non-linear system.

There was a peer reviewed paper posted yesterday that had shown that drought was the cause of much of the heat, not the other way around.

[csnavywx]

There was a peer reviewed paper posted yesterday that had shown that drought was the cause of much of the heat, not the other way around.

This is kind of a chicken/egg argument. It could definitely be plausibly argued that way. I do recall seeing a study last week that linked lower spring-time soil moisture to increased summer drought and heat (perhaps the same one?). That may seem obvious, but it's always nice to check out perception vs reality. One could also plausibly argue that said moisture deficit was created (or more likely) during the early spring due to abnormally high temperatures. Kind of a vicious feedback loop.

I'm sure we'll have much more in the way of research to add to that by next year. I think it's almost a certainty that an attribution study gets done on this year's event in the near future.

[TerryM]

My understanding is that corn prices are up 40% in the US and 30% in Canada. I drove through the tobacco belt here last week and the plants appeared dwarfed, didn't see any that would be taller than my knee. They're usually well over waist high.

Just local conditions of course, but food and feed prices seem to represent a broader picture.

Terry

[WeatherRusty]

There was a peer reviewed paper posted yesterday that had shown that drought was the cause of much of the heat, not the other way around.

A warmer climate will never be the most proximate cause of any weather event. It does however change the stage on which the first order weather determining factors play out.

[WeatherRusty]

The most difficult transition from fossil fuels to alternative energy will be farming.

See how productive these farmers are when they have to start farming with horse drawn tillers again.

Yup.

At some time in the future all powered vehicles will be electricly driven. How that electicity will be generated at the source is the only question.

[bobbutts]

At some time in the future all powered vehicles will be electricly driven. How that electicity will be generated at the source is the only question.

I've always pictured "critical" operations, like military keeping legacy fuels like gasoline and aviation fuel much longer than the public, until there's a reasonable and higher density storage medium. I suppose since fossil fuel is finite, so your scenario above becomes more and more likely as time passes.

[Jonger]

My understanding is that corn prices are up 40% in the US and 30% in Canada. I drove through the tobacco belt here last week and the plants appeared dwarfed, didn't see any that would be taller than my knee. They're usually well over waist high.

Just local conditions of course, but food and feed prices seem to represent a broader picture.

Terry

You sure are going to milk this warm year in North America for all its worth... The great lakes region had a cold and snowy decade and the first real weak winter you decided to consistently point out how snowy you remember it in your childhood.

Now, we have a drought that has no particular pattern of being more frequent today compared to the previous 100 years and now you are milking this.

[PhillipS]

At some time in the future all powered vehicles will be electricly driven. How that electicity will be generated at the source is the only question.

I think that there will still be a niche for biodiesel, particularly for trains, long-haul trucks, and agricultural equipment. Done properly, biodiesel can be carbon-neutral.

I feel that a bigger problem is how will we power avation? There is research underway for using biofuels as a supplement or substitute for Jet-A, but much work still needs to be done to show that the concept is feasible.

[Jonger]

At some time in the future all powered vehicles will be electricly driven. How that electicity will be generated at the source is the only question.

I agree that all passenger vehicles should start converting to electricity now, it will be the large diesel trucks and farm equipment that will take the longest to develop and need to continue to burn fossil fuels for years.

[WeatherRusty]

At some time in the future all most powered vehicles will be electricly driven. How that electicity will be generated at the source is the only question.

Must be carefull to avoid absolutes......

[Vergent]

I agree that all passenger vehicles should start converting to electricity now, it will be the large diesel trucks and farm equipment that will take the longest to develop and need to continue to burn fossil fuels for years.

In L.A. all our buses burn natural gas. The technology already exist to make the trucks and farm equipment much greener.

[Jonger]

In L.A. all our buses burn natural gas. The technology already exist to make the trucks and farm equipment much greener.

I made a comment the other day about how coal is being quickly phased out in the US... It's cheaper and cleaner, many coal plants can easily be converted to burn natural gas. It's not a permanent solution, but a better plank.

Somebody poo-pooed my comment.

[Jonger]

In L.A. all our buses burn natural gas. The technology already exist to make the trucks and farm equipment much greener.

Natural gas releases less co2 when burned, but when addressing particulate matter, New DEF equipped diesels are as clean or cleaner then modern gasoline cars.

[TerryM]

Natural gas releases less co2 when burned, but when addressing particulate matter, New DEF equipped diesels are as clean or cleaner then modern gasoline cars.

My guess is that they're cleaner per mile driven, if not per gallon consumed. I understand that in Europe most cars have been burning diesel for some time.

Terry