There’s been some concern lately over climate and agriculture. In the last few days we’ve had headlines such as:
Crops under stress as temperatures fall (UK Telegraph)
Canadian Wheat Output May Fall on Dry, Cool Weather (Bloomberg)
Southeastern Missouri farmers try to overcome wet spring, soggy crops (TV4 Kansas City)
About the same time as these stories I got an email from David Archibald that talks about shifts in growing areas in the USA and the increased yields we’ve seen in the past quarter century. The concern of course is that those gains may vanish with the advent of a quiet solar cycle:
Anthony,
The attached article, dated 30th December 2008, was noted on Icecap in early January.
The prediction in it appears to have been borne out by subsequent events. Note this report of widespread frosts:
Canada frosts the most widespread in recent memory (Reuters, also source of photo above)
Your readers may benefit from having it reposted on WUWT. It is a good example of the practical application of Friis-Christensen and Lassen theory, and thus solar science to practical matters at ground level.
David
Quantifying the US Agricultural Productivity Response to Solar Cycle 24
In 2006, The National Arbor Day Foundation updated the 1990 US Department of Agriculture map of plant hardiness zones for changes in the annual average minimum temperate over the intervening sixteen years.
That map is reproduced following:
Figure 1: US Plant Hardiness Zones from http://www.arborday.org/media/graphics/2006_zones.zip
Relative to the location of the zones in the 1990 USDA map, hardiness zones have shifted northward by the following amounts relative to the latitude band:
30° N 110 km northward shift
35° N 200 km northward shift
40° N 280 km northward shift
The improvement in growing conditions resulting from this northward shift in annual average minimum temperature caused an increase in agricultural productivity. Following is a graphic of the agricultural output of a number of US states accounting for 19% of US agricultural production:
Figure 2: Agricultural Productivity of Six US States 1960 to 2004.
Productivity is calibrated against Alabama’s production in 1996.
It is apparent from the graphic that there was a step change in the rate of increase of agricultural production at about the time the USDA plant hardiness zone map was created in 1990. Over the subsequent fourteen years, agricultural production in these six states rose 34%. The USDA state productivity data is available at:
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/AgProductivity/table03.xls
A proportion of the increase would have been due to the introduction of GM crops and other changes in agricultural practices. Nevertheless, the productivity growth is substantial and coincident with improved climatic conditions.
The change in plant hardiness zones over the 1990 to 2006 period is explained by solar cycle length changes. Solar Cycle 20 from 1964 to 1976 was 11.6 years long. Solar Cycle 21 was shorter than average at 10.3 years and Solar Cycle 22 from 1986 to 1996 was very short at 9.6 years long. There is a correlation between solar cycle length and temperature over the following solar cycle. In the mid-latitudes of the US north-eastern seaboard, this is 0.7° C for each year of solar cycle length.
With the cumulative change in solar cycle length between Solar Cycle 20 and Solar Cycle 22 of two years, this would have translated to a 1.4º C increase in temperature by early this decade relative to early 1970s. This is reflected in the northward shift of plant hardiness zones as mapped by The National Arbor Day Foundation.
By virtue of a lack of Solar Cycle 23 sunspots, solar minimum of the Solar Cycle 23 to 24 transition appears to have been in late 2008. This makes Solar Cycle 23 three years long than its predecessor. Consequently, using the 0.7° C per year of solar cycle length relationship, there will be a 2.1º C decline in temperature of the mid-latitudes next decade during Solar Cycle 24.
Using the calibration provided by the climate shift caused by the Solar Cycle 20 to 22 change in solar cycle length, the following shifts in climatic zones, and thus growing conditions, are estimated:
30° N 160 km southward shift
35° N 300 km southward shift
40° N 420 km southward shift
Assuming that two thirds of the productivity increase in mid-western states from 1990 to 2004 was climatically driven, then the productivity decline in this region due to Solar Cycle 24 is expected to be of the order of 30%. The total US agricultural productivity decrease would be less than that at possibly 20%, equating to the export share of US agricultural production.
David Archibald
30th December, 2008
Leif Svalgaard (10:26:18) :
REPLY: Maybe I need to do a post on this again – Anthony
I’ll help with that, if needed.
Seed can be saved. The farmer has to pay a “tech fee” if he or she elects to plant saved seed. Many do this for soybeans.
Wheat is the most common seed that is saved that is not GM. In Texas, some people save milo and sudan as well. I have used all three from saved seed.
Open pollinated crops are theoretically better than hybrids, but the long-term costs of plant breeding are not practical when compared to hybrids, thus hybrids rule currently.
Some hybrids are fertile. But, generally corn hybrids are not. Some common corn varieties are not hybrids.
To John W.
As for the first point, i would appreciate it if you could provide me with some references about the established links between North Am. (regional) temperatures and solar cycle length.
As for the second point, there are an awful lot of other factors that can affect trends in agricultural productivity (assuming the original plot in the article is about productivity, i-e yield, and not total production – which would also involve the areas under production): other climatic factors of course (what about rainfall ? incident radiation ?), but of course non-climatic factors as well, such as technological progress (improved varieties (not neccessarily GM), use of more efficient inputs (pesticides, fertilizers… ), irrigation), specially when combined with adequate agricultural policy, environnemental factors (soil fertility, CO2 fertilization), etc.
Sorting out these factors in current crop yield trends is nothing trivial, i believe. Some researchers are working on it (see papers by David Lobell, for exemple). I’m not familiar with the agriculture in the US, and i certainly believe that in northern US yields are temperature-limited (but what about mississipi, or georgia?); however i find it hard to believe that temperatures are THE major driver of this recent increase in crop yields (as opposed to yield increase before 1990 ?). At least I think it needs a little more argumentation.
I would like to emphazise that many of you are talking of CORN as only one kind of corn . There are more than a thousand varieties. To see some of those more adapted to colder temperatures, visit Cuzco, Peru, and taste some.
http://www.peru.info/default.asp?leng=2
Anna,
You cannot raise large fields of row crops without pesticides. It is simply not possible. If the pests are not controlled at the early stages when they are first spotted, a massive infestation is possible. Once the pests reach maturity – like the grasshopper – then they are virtually unstoppable.
The same goes for fertilizers.
GM seed does not cause bankruptcy – drought and pests, do.
The volcanoes in the Kurile Islands are the most likely source for strange weather in China.
http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/avoreport.php?view=kurile
Austin, Pofarmer, others:
My understanding is that companies such as Monsanto or Conagra have to plan/plant two or three years out to have seed stock (hybrid or GM) ready for any given year. Is this correct?
REPLY: Maybe I need to do a post on this again – Anthony
We will be waiting for it….and for the correlated “watt’s effect” which for sure will lower 10.7 to 64!
I buy most of my seed from the COOP or a private dealer. Most of it is produced in Texas on irrigated ground by private producers who sell to brokers after their germination tests are complete.
The larger seed houses contract out to private producers to produce a specific crop. The real knowledge on seed production rests with them, not Monsanto or some other boogeyman.
Monsanto could go away tomorrow and it would have no effect on me or most producers. Another firm would replace them because there is a real, economic need for GM and plant breeding.
GM crops have saved a lot of time and labor and have greatly reduced the use of hard herbicides and pesticides. They have made no-till viable. Its been a great plus. Glyhposate is harmless. Would you prefer Atrazine?
Harold Ambler (07:23:21) :
Adam Soereg (05:22:58) :
A little bit offtopic, but it is very likely that June 2009 will be colder globally than June 2008.
Roy Spencer has stated that his team exclusively uses Channel 9 in calculating global mean temperature. 2009 has been higher than 2008 on Channel 9 for three months now.
I think you misremember. It is channel 5 that Roy Spencer uses :
“A reminder for those who are monitoring the daily progress of global-average temperatures here:
(1) Only use channel 5 (”ch05″), which is what we use for the lower troposphere and middle troposphere temperature products.
(2) Compare the current month to the same calendar month from the previous year (which is already plotted for you).
(3) The progress of daily temperatures should only be used as a rough guide for how the current month is shaping up because t”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/05/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-for-may-down-again-near-zero/#more-8204
and channel 5 shows cooling at the moment:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
My two cents
I tried GMO Soybeans when they were first introduced. And contine to use Round-up ready beans. The RR (roundup ready) trait allowed easier,cheaper weed control. You got a yield boost if you had weeds i your fields that were hard to controll with other herbicide programs. Over 80% of the beans planted now include the RR trait. The biggest change in the farm country was the disappearance of your local soybean herbicide rep. Monsanto has all the business today. They are able to insert the RR trait into varities of soybeans with better yields over time.
Corn has multiple GMO traits that improve yield. Resistance to various insect being the main driver here.
Wheat : a decision was made to not raise GMO wheat since the politics were so overwhelming. I.E. do you want you a pupper fish gene with your toast this morning. So all the reasearch dollar have flowed to corn and soybeans.
Gore got it heaviest snowfall for two years, yesterday. That is, Gore southwest of Dunedin, New Zealand.
As the third storm of the winter hit New Zealand.
Anna V: “and channel 5 shows cooling at the moment:”
Up to and including June 14, the cumulative difference from last year is +0.64 degrees. Dividing this by the 14 days and adding to last June’s anomaly of -0.114 degrees gives a reading of -0.087 degrees. However, given the difference from last year as of June 14 was -0.054 degrees, there is a strong possibility that the June temperature will end up lower than the -0.087 degrees figure. And this is when the MEI reading is positive!
Food shortages and price spikes experienced over the past two years were but a warning wave of what is to come.
I can vouch for the cool, rainy June here in SE Missouri. My farmer friends tell me that they are way behind planting rice and soybeans. Its getting late for both crops to have proper growing season. Rainy weather has also had major impact on construction projects. We have lost more than two weeks of work days over the past month. Long term forcasts (for what they are worth) don’t look much better.
The farmer has to pay a “tech fee” if he or she elects to plant saved seed.
Actually, you can’t save GM seed at all. You sign a contract to that effect when you buy it, and it is enforced.
“My understanding is that companies such as Monsanto or Conagra have to plan/plant two or three years out to have seed stock (hybrid or GM) ready for any given year. Is this correct?”
Well, it depends. To gear up for full scale production of a hybrid is a fairly long window, however, some seed companies are now doing off season production in Hawaii and Chile, to make it faster bringing certain varieties to market.
Can you also put up a blog about the jet stream???? Colder weather in the north means that the jet stream has moved NORTH and is in its Rockies-Great Lakes track. It is the depth of its North to South oriented loops that scoops out warmer weather and puts cold weather in its place in southern locations. The constant cold versus warm fronts also results in weather extremes in the Northern latitudes. When the North is bathed in warmer calm weather it means that the jet stream is in its straighter, less loopy pineapple belt-Florida track. The lack of mixing cold with warm means that the northern areas are heated by the Sun instead of cooled or fried by a raucous looping jet stream. Unfortunately, it also means that in its Southern track, the warm weather over the Gulf leads to strong hurricanes coming on shore one after the other.
The cooler wet weather means rust in rye grass in the Willamette Valley. Yields will be down but price could go up. EXCEPT that it also means no lawn replanting necessary in the South as the lawns won’t die in the heat. Less demand for lawn seed. The price will stay low. Wheat futures are a good bet. People will eat expensive bread way before they will eat their lawn.
I am left to wonder by what proposed mechanism the quiet Sun is thought by Archibald to have caused a shift in the zones? Does not this David follow the jet stream or the PDO? ENSO? Trade winds, Hadley Cells, Kelvin Waves or the Coriolis? I sometimes get the idea that he sticks his fingers in his ears and says, “La La La La La La La La La”. So I have a suggestion for his next post. He should explain the mechanism and influence he believes these natural weather variation pattern drivers have had on the last 100 years and why he thinks the Sun’s proposed mechanism and influence is so much stronger than these other Earth bound drivers. One of the better ways that Sun believers can promote their idea is to explain and compare their hypothesis with other drivers. And I mean thoroughly. Let’s end these frog jumping postings that go from zones to Sun without much meat between. Where’s the beef?
I personally think following pasture or crop yields would give a better indication on climate than comparing daily highs, or taking a daily mean from temp manually… nature will do a better job at showing the averages over a larger area whilst eliminating the possibility of very localized conditions.. (most pastoral farmers will measure pasture growth also)
However, as a farmer, i know the fact that the fertilizer companies participated in a bit o blatant price gouging during the 07-08 season, and with reduced commodity prices during the 08-09 a lot o people did cut their inputs to remain economical… at least here in New Zealand anyway… But this autumn just gone, was the coldest ive seen, with the worst growth rates by far! And the may here, was the coldest, wettest and darkest in new zealands recorded history. We Missed all the warm northerly rains and had the lows too far south dragging up freezing weather and rain a few months earlier than normal.
Jimmy Haigh (08:13:26) :
All Haighs originated in Yorkshire in England and we were all originally Vikings with the surname ‘Hauge’ from the Stavanger area of Southwest Norway. They first arrived in England in the 9th Century. Maybe Norway was too cold then? It warmed up in the MWP though.
Interesting. Hauge is still a very common name in Norway.
Regarding Viking era climate in Norway, at least one history book claims the opposite of what you suggest; it was warm. The following URL is to a Google translate to English of an on line Norwegian history book
http://tinyurl.com/Vikings-in-the-west
“The climate in the Viking period was better than it is today. That meant that the crops grew well, which meant that people had enough to eat. We can see it in the skeletons as archaeologists have studied, people were just as tall as we are today. In the Middle Ages, when the climate was colder and there was less food, people became shorter again. The good supply of food during the Viking Age made the population increase, which gave many people no choice: If one would have its own soil spot to cultivate food on, many were forced to look for new places to live.”
Here, a “better” climate, means a warmer climate obviously.
Max (00:32:24) is right on the money. The principal connection (controlling for other factors) between climate and agricultural productivity are the total growing-degree days during the growing season. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growing_degree_day
That squishy statistic is unfortunately subject to divergent calculation and wide interpretation. For instance, the National Weather Service computes a corn growing degree day by:
… subtracting a base temperature of 50°F from the average of the maximum and minimum temperatures for the day. Minimum temperatures less than 50°F are set to 50, and maximum temperatures greater than 86°F are set to 86. These substitutions indicate that no appreciable growth is detected with temperatures lower than 50 or greater than 86.
which is not accurate and almost counter-factual. Nevertheless, the amount of heat work on plants at effective temperatures during the growing season is the key driver of plant productivity — after factoring out moisture stress, fertilization, ag practices, etc.
The more heat work, the better the growth. The warmest areas of the country (such as the Imperial, San Joaquin, and Salinas Valleys in CA) are also the most productive. The coldest areas (Alaska, Maine) have the least vegetative productivity.
Most of the food crops grown today (that feed the world) were domesticated in tropical or semi-tropical climates.
Warmer Is Better when comes to farming.
Pamela – I don’t think its either or….it can be both solar and PDO/AMO/ENSO and the jetstream……though I’m not sure David A. gets this…as a specialist in solar he might not be expected to….what we need is some interdisciplinary teamwork between ocean and solar specialists. Check out the papers of Charles Perry (haven’t got time to get the links but google will find him at the US geological service).
We seem to have two interacting systems in parallel – the solar cycles, and the ocean oscillations and the latter can be followed in the paleo-ecological record and then correlations sought with the solar proxies. There are many papers that suggest the patterns are linked.
Over on this side of the pond, the jetstream was loopy and the loop had shifted slightly eastward in June 2007 and 2008 bringing torrential rain to the western UK, but this May-June, the track has been much flatter and further south, also in the winter, bringing cool wet and windy weather to Iberia, and drier weather in the UK – with some Arctic highs developng – not sure if it is the highs that push it south, or whether they are a consequence. At times these highs produce northerly winds and cool air masses into the UK.
The MetOffice expects a hot summer here – but they got the last two summers and the winter forecast wrong. They may get lucky – this summer is different from last.
Denver has yet to hit 80 in June. That is a record…the previous record was the first 14 days of 1949.
Mike D. (15:05:21) :
Yes, i know weather conditions show in my dairy companies production figures, locally and nationally.. i think farming practices average themselves out… for dairy 1000kgs o milk solids a hectare is as good as youre going to get on a low input system on good land. Its not hard to factor in the N induced growth, or fertilizers either, these are known figures ( N= 10-1 response above 12C soil temps, 15-1 above 18C )