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
rbateman (19:31:54) :
At about 1000 feet above MSL, in the upper 30s north latitude, within 10 miles of the Pacific.
SteveSadlov (12:23:34) :
What’s been going on in your weather?
Frost, fog, rain, dry, hot & cold?
Leif Svalgaard (05:49:21) :
I only have to got back to WUWT in February to prove you wrong, in part with your own words: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/14/code-blue-107-centimeter-solar-radio-flux-is-flatlining/
Extrapolation to zero of plots of the 10.7cm flux against other activity indices such as plage area or total photospheric magnetic flux in active regions suggest a quiet sun flux density of about 64 s.f.u.
And your words: “I have updated the graph in the document to show the flat-lining of F10.7.”
Many nations will not accept our GM exports. To them, it’s the equivalent of cardboard.
It’s also the equivalent of protectionism.
“Dump?! Sir, I do not dump. I . . . sell abroad at a loss . . . in defense of the national interest.”
Central Maine, June 18 2009, NO home gardens around here look good unless they’ve been ‘replanted.’ Almost everyone’s garden plants which were planted in late May (typical) have died due to cold or excessive moisture. I’ve personally seen twenty or more home gardens in the past three weeks. We have an acre or so planted at home, and little other than the treated corn is growing well. Half the tomato plants dead. Cucumbers gave up due to root rot. My wife and I went for a walk last evening to the lake, and it felt like late September. We can see the possibility we may not have the forty or fifty jars of canned garden tomotoes we usually put away for winter. It would be a first, but a variety of plants are just not growing well at all due to too few warm sunny days, too many cool wet days and nights.
John in China, Maine.
David Archibald (14:25:38) :
And your words: “I have updated the graph in the document to show the flat-lining of F10.7.”
(sigh) At solar minimum there is a period where F10.7 curve is flat. At the current minimum that happened half a year ago. F10.7 is now markedly up and is no longer ‘flat’. See the pink curve at http://www.leif.org/research/TSI-SORCE-2008-now.png
The error you commit is to try to pretend that solar minimum is still in the future and that F10.7 is still dropping. It is NOT.
John F. Hultquist (23:37:13) : Daytime temps above the high 80s do not do wine grapes any good and where such temperatures are expected the growers often place misters among the vines. The evaporation lowers the temp and the vines keep growing.
Depends on the variety. Winegrapes are grown in Northern Africa where it’s d*mn hot. In fact, Neolithic winepresses (treading basins) are found Egypt, Iran, and in the Jordan Rift Valley where it’s even hotter. Muscatel may have originated in Greece, or in Muscat on the southern Arabian Peninsula as the name implies. Only the ancient Phoenicians know. The northern varieties are new cultivars. The Imperial Valley produces winegrapes as well as table and raisin grapes. Etc.
anna v (10:10:52) : For scam I was talking of the lure described in the article I linked to buy GM seed with the promise of higher yiled and become bankrupt much more than if you had bought the seeds from the home providers, or even kept seeds from the previous crop, as was the traditional way.
I, too, have seen “news articles” about this in India. I could see it happening on a small scale; but have not fist hand evidence. Google it up and decide for yourself.
So the weather is going to be cold, and there will be crop challenges, and farmers will respond with faster growing and changed plantings. There will be a rocky year or three while it happens. It’s not going to be particularly easy times. ( I don’t expect disaster, but just “hard times” like were in the world before the Modern Optimum warm period). My advice:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/food-storage-systems/
And have at least a little garden of your own with seeds you can save. GM is not part of the solution for what is to come, it is part of the problems that will come. There is a wonderful book on edible landscaping:
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Book-Edible-Landscaping-Resource-Saving/dp/0871562782
And these folks have a nice reading list:
http://www.bellaonline.com/subjects/6322.asp
if you want a garden that doesn’t look like a vegetable garden 😉
Am I wrong that the GM crop is sterile and cannot be used to produce next year’s crop? How can that be healthy?
Generally GM can’t be used either because it is not licensed for such use or because the seeds, after crossing out, are not suitable (i.e. they are not a stable cross – like hybrids). There was work being done on a ‘terminator gene’ but I don’t know if it going in to production. Some are stable and can be used, if you pay the penalty fees and get permission.
The big issue is that if you plant GM near non-GM you get genetic pollution of the non-GM types. This is not a hypothetical. The rice shortage a year or two ago (blamed on Global Warming) was largely because a GM test field (gown by Bayer) down near Louisiana polluted the “foundation stock” for some of the most widely grown rice varieties from other seed companies and rendered it useless (as no license to use GM existed AND the strain was now wrong…)
The foundation stock is what you grow out to make the seeds you will sell, so this caused a massive problem. Lots of farmers also quit growing rice until it all got cleaned up. Something about destroying your crops that bothered them… It was a few years before it was caught, so there was very little clean seed to start from to regenerate a new foundation seed stock.
A farmer in Canada had spent years developing his own strain of Canola. Monsanto GM crossed into it from outside his farm AND SO MONSANTO SUED HIM. A decade or so later (and AFTER his years of labor were destroyed along with his crop) the suit settled in his favor, sort of… his seeds are toast, but he doesn’t have to pay Monsanto for their polluting his crop…
There are now multiple herbicide resistant Rape / Canola WEEDS growing all over the place, including Japan (thanks to Canadian seeds falling off trucks on the way to processing). Oh, and there have been several cases now of such genes jumping to related species. The Cruciferous group being particularly untidy with their genes (cabages, kales, canola, rape, radishes, mustards ….) along with there being a weed (that around here is commonly called “milkweed” but isn’t) that will cross with lettuce (normally only a problem in giving you bitter lettuce, but going the other way once RR lettuce is around will result in unstoppable weeds…) At least one wild weed was found with a “quad stack” of herbicide resistance genes from several vendors…
Personally I do not like pesticides with my food, and would prefer natural pest control or even living with pests as people have for maybe million of years. To incorporated them in the genes is terrible, imho. I have read some articles that the bee devestation in the US is due to these genetic pesticides.
Oh yes, the OTHER big problem…
But first: The first few years I had a garden, I had significant pest problems. I gave up for 2 years and just let the bugs eat my chard et. al. Then the spider and wasp population built up. Now I use no pesticides and enjoy watching my army of wasps working over the crop on warm days.. and have little to no pest problems (other than the tweety birds that peck my bean and pea leaves…. but they are so cute!) Oh, and I’ve got some kind of finch like thing and some hummers that keep the bugs down too. All because I stopped putting chemicals out. Completely unplanned, just an act of frustration.
Back to the GM problems:
You can not wash off the BT protein inside ever cell of GM product, it is IN the food. You CAN wash off BT spray applied externally. To those who will say “it is harmless”: A food allergy can develop to any non-self protein. The more you are exposed, the more likely it will develop.
It is also now only a bit of time until BT no longer works as bugs develop resistance. It was one of the very few “pesticides” classed as “natural” (being a bacteria when used in organic gardening, not a chemical). Some folks have suggested that the decision to focus on BT was at least partially motivated by the desire to kill off the best “last resort” option organic gardeners had.
Further, if you EVER develop an allergy to the BT protein, exactly what will you be able to eat? Since I have 3 food allergies already, I’m particularly bothered by this potential. There is evidence for cross reaction between soy, peanut, and lupin beans. Some kids with peanut allergies have died after eating lupini beans in Europe (not common in US food). It is speculated that increased soy consumption may be part of the reason we have an epidemic of peanut allergies. So what happens when even MORE genes and proteins are shared? How does a person with an allergy know what species they are eating when the species all have non-specific genes in them?
Per bees: A German researcher was testing the BT toxin on bees (that it is supposed to not kill) and it didn’t kill them. THEN they got an accidental infection with another illness (a fungus?) that normally didn’t kill them, just made them a bit sick. The whole hive died. They are now redoing the testing a few more times to prove it. In the mean time we have BT laden corn pollen blowing over the entire midwest killing off who knows what… (it can blow for miles). Endangered insect species anyone? Believed to be part of the drop in butterfly numbers recently as they feed on things, like real milkweed, but it has a layer of corn pollen on it and no more butterfly… The interactions and cross reactions of RR, BT, etc. are completely unknown, untested, and not being looked at much or at all. “The Science Is Settled”… so why look?
This is out of topic, but monoculture, controlled by a few corporations with patents on genes is a suicidal way for humanity to go, particularly if a little ice age is in the making. It is diversity that helps survival.
That is why there are folks like me, who save seeds. Heirloom open pollinated seeds. Put them in glass jars in the freezer and they keep for decades. I have a dedicated (small) freezer for this purpose ( 8 cu ft?).
http://www.seedsavers.org/
One of my food allergies is to corn (which arrived about the same time GM corn took off, but is unlikely to be related; maybe). I have an ark of seeds so that WHEN some fool puts a corn gene where it doesn’t belong, I can still eat…
There was a fish gene being put into some other plants. Anyone with seafood allergies? How do you handle “kosher” when your beans may be part crab?
Oh, and there are two other small problems:
1) The gene is “shutgunned” in with a Locked on master regulator gene to assure it is expressed. This tends to “lock on” some other random genes in whatever chromosome it enters. For this reason, many of the “sample” die. Those that don’t die are used to breed up a product. But what non-lethal genes are locked on, doing what? Nobody knows. One GM potato was withdrawn when they found it was a toxin (probably solanine that makes potato leaves and green skins poisonous) and was making folks sick; but it was more pest resistant…
2) The genes are shot in using a virus that its particularly good at putting random chunks of genetic material into the nucleus (sometimes including it’s own genes). Bacteria fed on GM products have, in some cases, been shown to pick up some or all of the gene package. Nobody knows what this brew of pesticide genes, locked on master genes, virus genes, et. al. does in your intestinal tract when mixed with lots of microbes soaking up some of the genes. There is anecdotal evidence of some not-so-good things going on (that I’ll leave out due to the lack of published work).
Oh, and they put a Marker Gene to make it easy to spot GM plants. It is an antibiotic resistance gene. Just what we need being given to every person and farm animal on the planet for incorporation into their gut bacteria. (Bacteria frequently pick up bits of genes from their environment…)
One last minor point: GM plants often have significant “issues” that causes lower yields (especially in the first few rounds of breeding) due to this “shotgun and lock on random chunks of DNA and break some other bits” process. GM is about CONVENIENCE to the farmer, not yield or quality for you. In looking at GM, the model was “one gene, one protein”. This has been shown to be wrong, it’s more of “one holographic gene, several sometimes unrelated proteins”. When you whack that around, you have no idea what you get and what you break. None. All you have is “hope”.
But the science is settled…
IMHO, GM is just not ready for prime time, no matter how much you like The Genetic Shiny Thing. Too many loose ends and unresolved issues. The major “advantage” seems to be that Monsanto (and Bayer and Syngenta and) can get a patent on the genes and force you into serfdom indentured to them for life and sell boat loads of RoundUp for soaking the entire midwest.
BTW, GM corn genes have already been found in the “land race” primitive corns of Mexico — where new genes come from for developing our hybrids. Genetic pollution of the land races in the centers of origin (as pointed out by Adolfo) is a major issue. The idea that the GM packages stay where they are put is seriously broken.
If Syngenta finds a great cold tolerance gene in a “wild” corn in Mexico, but it has a Monsanto RR gene in it already: Who owns the genes? I can say it will be tied up in court so long that nobody will benefit from it in time…
E.M.Smith (21:19:03) :
thanks, I enjoyed it :).
Canada has had a ridiculously cold year so far, just about anywhere. Crops have been decimated in large swaths of the prairies. Further north? Well, here’s a link about northern Manitoba’s coldest spring (if you can call it that) ever:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/westview/big-chill-in-churchill-47992231.html
The southern hemisphere is faring no better, with ice wine in Brazil and plentiful snow (earliest ski openings on record) in New Zealand and Australia:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10579643
Skiing is ongoing in Europe as well:
http://www.planetski.eu/news/528
Things won’t be getting any better, either. I think we could use a piece about Mount Sarychev in the Kuril islands:
It’s eruption is here
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/38000/38985/ISS020-E-09048_lrg.jpg
And the cooling sulphur plume coming to a continent near you (click on “daily OMI images” and then choose (say) Kamchatka:
http://so2.umbc.edu/omi/
I don’t normally post a bunch of links like this, but a quick scan suggests to me that they haven’t been posted yet, and I thought some of you might find them interesting, especially the last two.