Guest essay by David Archibald
A correspondent in Oslo writes:
“The official view in Norway is in contrast to what the people experience because of cooling weather: Late spring gives flooding and avalanches when late snow-melting in the mountains. Water pipes freeze because of early and deep frost in the winter. Insect populations down 40% in 5 years because of cool and wet summers. This of cause is bad for pollination of fruit and berries. The grain harvest in Norway this summer is down 18% from average the last 5 years, despite increase in area and better seeds. But officially it is getting warmer.”
Some of those observations are anecdotal but some facts can be checked – Norwegian wheat production for example. The following figure shows Norwegian wheat production from 1960. Wheat production is off 48% from its peak:
Figure 1: Norwegian Wheat Production 1960 – 2013
The problem is sprouting of grain on the stalk prior to harvest due to excessive humidity. That in turn means that Norwegian wheat is no longer good enough to make Norwegian bread as shown by Figure 2:
Figure 2: Percentage of domestic wheat in Norwegian wheat flour (Statistics Norway 2011)
Just a few years ago, Norwegian wheat comprised up to about 75% of Norwegian bread, seemingly hitting a blend wall. Now it is down to 10% due to climate change.
The Norwegian Government used to have a policy of storing two years’ worth of grain consumption. This was a lesson from WW2. It took two generations to forget that lesson and the policy was abandoned in the 1990s. Like a number of other countries, Norway will have to pay for higher food imports while its main source of revenue is falling rapidly. Norwegian oil production peaked in 2001 at 3.4 million barrels per day is now under half that number:
Figure 3: Norwegian Oil Production 1965 – 2013
Norwegian oil production has produced a classic Hubbert-style peak. Norway will cease to be an oil exporter by 2030. The country had attempted to placate the gods of climate with an expensive carbon capture project at the Mongstad refinery on the west coast. That foolish and self-indulgent project was abandoned on 20th September, 2013. With the funds that have been saved by that abandonment perhaps the Norwegian Government should go back to storing two years’s worth of grain.
Related articles
- Norway ditches ‘moon landing’ carbon capture project (businessgreen.com)
- ‘One of the ugliest political crash landings’ – Norway abandons carbon capture project (mining.com)
David, double the impact with a temperature graph and carbon dioxide graph. It would follow figure 1 pretty well. Throw in the carbon dioxide graph to show you need both temp and CO2 for agriculture.
If interested in the effect of climate on wheat production, total production is meaningless without an area under cultivation as the denominator. Isn’t this the better graph?
The decline in wheat production could have something to do with “eco-food” demand. I have noticed big patches of weed in the fields of wheat here in Sweden, when I do my workrelated roadtrips. Sometimes an entire field is at least 10% weed. It is easy to see what farmer is pandering to to the citydwellers, hungry for “bio-dynamic” food.
How much agricultural land is lost to wind farms?
As UnfrozenCavemanMD suggests,
The area should be emphatic
Once area yield is addressed
The graph comes out much less dramatic:
http://www.factfish.com/statistic-country/norway/wheat,%20yield
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
I used to buy “sprouted wheat bagels” at my local grocery. They were discontinued by the supplier about six months ago — reason unknown. Perhaps Norwegian wheat farmers need to investigate this potential market.
Is it getting warmer or not? That first paragraph is difficult to decipher.
“Officially” = “Manipulated”.
People complain about the cold but, OFFICIALLY its getting “Warmer”.
My ass
“Now it is down to 10% due to climate change.”
Wait a minute, how do they know that the growth from 1% to 75% since 1970 wasn’t also caused by climate change?
As Keith says, the wheat yield per hectare is unchanged since the 1980’s. So it looks more like land is being switched to grow more lucrative crops. I suspect biofuels.
While I always love a good shot at the doomsday cultists… I would say this has less to due with global warming directly and more to due with the goal of global warming… aka bringing about a socialist utopia.
Anyone who knows anything knows socialism create vast waste and under production of resources. Anyone who’s been following the news lately knows that the communism union know as the EUSSR has been gaining more and more control and power over every aspect of europeon life. One of its major pushes is the control of food.
It is much more likely that the loss of production is due to socialism then any weather/”climate changes”.
David
You badly need a Norwegian temperature graph if you are saying that wheat production is down because of the climate.
here is CET to 1772. Temperatures have been dropping sharply for a decade. We are back to the climate of the 1730’s.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
tonyb
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/27/reactions-to-ipcc-ar5-summary-for-policy-makers/#comment-1431798
Excerpt:
My primary concern at this point is the probability of imminent global cooling, which may or may not be severe. In the longer term over thousands of years, catastrophic natural global cooling is inevitable. I suggest that the primary focus of climate science should not be alleged humanmade global warming and its mitigation; rather it should primarily focus on natural global cooling and its mitigation.
___________
Perhaps W. B. Yeats was projecting global cooling:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world…
– The Second Coming (1919)
___________
Obviously not enough sleep last night. 🙂
Regards to all, Allan
Clearly, oil production is down due to climate change. The graph says it all! What else has declined in the past 5 years? We’ll blame that on climate change as well.
Wait until sun cycle 25 kicks in!
This is silly….Norway didn’t even grow wheat used for food prior to around 1950
All they need to do is take the varieties of wheat that made it through the “climate change”…
…and breed again from there
Like no one grew any food during the MWP or LIA……sheesh
Tony B, I may have misunderstood the author of the above article, but I think he uses “climate change” to refer to the 17 years of lack of warming and even cooling since 1996. Thus, I believe your fine data citation supports David’s analysis (and good for you, Tony B).
So, yes, Klem, “climate change” (warming due entirely to natural forcings such as ENSO) did help the wheat to grow and, now, is stunting it. AND MORE WARMING WOULD BE A GOOD THING.
Yes, Mr. Nystrom, that indeed could be a major cause. “Organic” and/or “pesticide-free” and/or “non-GM” food is a scam perpetrated for profit on the uneducated. Sad. None of my business, yes, until they get politicians to take away my freedom to choose to NOT participate in their fantasy world, WASTEFUL (indeed, Temp), practices.
Take care, Allan — your posts over the past weeks (years? — I’m relatively new to WUWT) have established that you have many worthwhile, intelligent, things to share. Sleep well, tonight!
Walter J Horsting says:
October 5, 2013 at 11:51 am
Wait until sun cycle 25 kicks in!
Walter
It would appear that “shuffles” may be a better description than “kicks”
Martin M is dead on.
While Archibald’s assertions in this article could, with luck be true, unlike the vast majority of his curve-fitting pseudoscience, there is no way to know from the information presented. A stopped clock is right twice a day after all. But let’s do a ten minute analysis while in bed with my laptop.
Norwegian wheat production may be down to the land being shifted to other crops for economic or political reasons. Sometimes it’s just cheaper to import one thing and produce another, or perhaps biofuel subsidies made crop switching profitable.
A cursory search found this:
“Yields in 2001 included 1,203,000 tons of grain (51% barley, 28% oats, 21% wheat) and 388,200 tons of potatoes. … Norway imports most of its grain and large quantities of its fruits and vegetables.”
Read more: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Norway-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz2gsKoD4iB
Since wheat was apprx 21 % of Norwegian grain production in 2001, a shifting from barley and oats to wheat due to market forces and then back again could easily account for the wheat production graph. A little more searching for total grain production found this:
http://www.ssb.no/a/english/kortnavn/korn_en/tab-2012-11-27-02-en.html
There’s definitely been an up and down swing in total grain production in the last 25 years, with a bounty year in 2004, but it looks like the majority of the decline in wheat has just been shifting to barley, oats, and rye. Perhaps for climate reasons, but just as likely for market or political reasons, as grain is not the majority of agriculture in Norway.
Of course then there’s this:
“Since 1928, the state has subsidized Norwegian grain production; a state monopoly over the import of grains maintains the price of Norwegian-grown grains. The Ministry of Agriculture has divisions dealing with agricultural education, economics, and other aspects. Each county has an agricultural society headed by a government official. These societies, financed half by the district and half by the state, implement government schemes for improving agricultural practices.”
Read more: http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Europe/Norway-AGRICULTURE.html#ixzz2gsNpzVBb
So who knows what is happening and why? I sure don’t, and I guarantee Archibald doesn’t as well.
Paging Tor, personal friend and WUWT reader from Norway, could you weigh in please? I guess I’ll have to send a facebook message.
Echoing an earlier comment–total wheat production is meaningless as it ignores total acreage devoted to production, which could have fallen off a cliff. Likewise with oil production; market forces (current and forecast market price) also determine how MUCH oil one is willing to extract. Oil wells (at least land-based; this may or may not be the case with offshore rigs) sometimes sit idle if the marginal profitability of each barrel is not compelling. How competitive is Norwegian oil vs allternative sources? Is Norway using foreign (or domestically) sourced natural gas?
It looks like Norwegian grain production is a pretty good proxy for NH surface temperature anomaly. With a baseline near 1965 when it was close to zero.
Yet another indicator of a climate turning point in 2005.
They try to spin this as due to climate change with mention of excess moisture … read stronger and more frequent flooding … read unattributable climate weirding.
If it is due to ‘climate change’ it would seem to be more likely the climate cooling kind.
Is it getting warmer or is it getting colder?
Is there global warming or do we have global cooling?
2 incredibly polar opposite views with the debate, more often than not focused on this and climate and weather. While the most amazing contribution to growing crops related to the atmosphere has been the fertilizing effect in the globally well mixed and increasing CO2.
Crops yields and world food production is benefiting greatly.
About 85% of plant species are C3 plants. They include the cereal grains: wheat, rice, barley, oats. Peanuts, cotton, sugar beets, tobacco, spinach, soybeans, and most trees are C3 plants. Most lawn grasses such as rye and fescue are C3 plants.
Corn is a C4 crop.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
“At present atmospheric levels of CO2, C4 plants are more efficient at photosynthesis than C3: in absolute conversion efficiency of light energy to stored chemical energy they are around 7% efficient, compared to 4% for C3.
As CO2 concentrations increase, the photosynthetic efficiency gap between C3 and C4 plants rapidly closes, and at double today?s CO2 concentration (i.e. at 780 ppm instead of today?s 390 ppm), the photosynthesis rates are the same. Incidentally, the majority of the world?s most troublesome weeds use the C4 pathway, and so have a competitive advantage over C3 crops at current CO2 concentrations. At higher CO2 concentrations, competing for the same resources on the same patch (light, water, CO2, nutrients etc), C3 crops increasing out-compete the weeds.
At double CO2 concentration, not only has the efficiency of C3 crops improved tremendously, but the temperature at which optimal photosynthesis occurs in C3 increases up to that of C4. Thus the vast majority of food crops will benefit hugely by increased CO2, and even more so by increased CO2 coupled with warming.”
“The problem is sprouting of grain on the stalk prior to harvest due to excessive humidity. ”
Sprouting is the first step in making malt by creating enzymes that convert starch to sugar. Sprouting on the stem, send directly to the roaster, make mash,add water and hops, boil wort, make beer.
There, problem solved.
Norwegians For Global Warming?
Here is an academic presentation of wheat production in Norway made in 2009:
http://www.umb.no/statisk/imt/Wheat_production.pdf
It shows the same histogram of % of domestic production as David Archibald’s article, except oddly it terminates in 2006.
Data is given for the area under cultivation for wheat and cereals, the absence of historic year-to-year acerages suggests these numbers have not changed substantially.
While some loss of production might be caused by land use changes, the fall of almost 50% since 2009 seems highly likely to have a climate component. We know summers have been bad since then. I’m going to Trondheim next week, I’ll ask someone.
Mike Maguire says: October 5, 2013 at 12:32 pm
Helpful. Thank you Mike.
Best, Allan