I found this press release on the UC Davis website interesting, because it discusses something new to me, “winter chill”. I found it interesting. But immediately, I thought of this study on irrigation by Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama, Huntsville.
Irrigation most likely to blame for Central California warming
Given that the UC Davis researchers seem to have only looked at temperature records to establish trends, it looks like they may have missed a significant contributor to the trends – increased humidity due to irrigation. – Anthony
From UC Davis News: Warming Climate Threatens California Fruit and Nut Production
July 21, 2009
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Winter chill, a vital climatic trigger for many tree crops, is likely to decrease by more than 50 percent during this century as global climate warms, making California no longer suitable for growing many fruit and nut crops, according to a team of researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Washington.
In some parts of California’s agriculturally rich Central Valley, winter chill has already declined by nearly 30 percent, the researchers found.
“Depending on the pace of winter chill decline, the consequences for California’s fruit and nut industries could be devastating,” said Minghua Zhang, a professor of environmental and resource science at UC Davis.
Also collaborating on the study were Eike Luedeling, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Davis’ Department of Plant Sciences and UC Davis graduate Evan H. Girvetz, who is now a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Their study appears July 22 in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The study is the first to map winter chill projections for all of California, which is home to nearly 3 million acres of fruit and nut trees that require chilling. The combined production value of these crops was $7.8 billion in 2007, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“Our findings suggest that California’s fruit and nut industry will need to develop new tree cultivars with reduced chilling requirements and new management strategies for breaking dormancy in years of insufficient winter chill,” Luedeling said.
About winter chill
Most fruit and nut trees from nontropical locations avoid cold injury in the winter by losing their leaves in the fall and entering a dormant state that lasts through late fall and winter.
In order to break dormancy and resume growth, the trees must receive a certain amount of winter chill, traditionally expressed as the number of winter chilling hours between 32 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Each species or cultivar is assumed to have a specific chilling requirement, which needs to be fulfilled every winter.
Insufficient winter chill plays havoc with flowering time, which is particularly critical for trees such as walnuts and pistachios that depend on male and female flowering occurring at the same time to ensure pollination and a normal yield.
Planning for a warmer future
Fruit and nut growers commonly use established mathematical models to select tree varieties whose winter chill requirements match conditions of their local area. However, those mathematical models were calibrated based on past temperature conditions, and establishing chilling requirements may not remain valid in the future, the researchers say. Growers will need to include likely future changes in winter chill in their management decisions.
“Since orchards often remain in production for decades, it is important that growers now consider whether there will be sufficient winter chill in the future to support the same tree varieties throughout their producing lifetime,” Zhang said.
To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.
They introduced the concept of “safe winter chill,” the amount of chilling that can be safely expected in 90 percent of all years. They calculated the amount of safe winter chill for each scenario and also quantified the change in area of a safe winter chill for certain crop species.
New findings
The researchers found that in all projected scenarios, the winter chill in California declined substantially over time. Their analysis in the Central Valley, where most of the state’s fruit and nut production is located, found that between 1950 and 2000, winter chill had already declined by up to 30 percent in some regions.
Using data from climate models developed for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (2007), the researchers projected that winter chill will have declined from the 1950 baseline by as much as 60 percent by the middle of this century and by up to 80 percent by the end of the century.
Their findings indicate that by the year 2000, winter chill had already declined to the point that only 4 percent of the Central Valley was still suitable for growing apples, cherries and pears — all of which have high demand for winter chill.
The researchers project that by the end of the 21st century, the Central Valley might no longer be suitable for growing walnuts, pistachios, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries.
“The effects will be felt by growers of many crops, especially those who specialize in producing high-chill species and varieties,” Luedeling said. “We expect almost all tree crops to be affected by these changes, with almonds and pomegranates likely to be impacted the least because they have low winter chill requirements.”
Developing alternatives
The research team noted that growers may be able change some orchard management practices involving planting density, pruning and irrigation to alleviate the decline in winter chill. Another option would be transitioning to different tree species or varieties that do not demand as much winter chill.
There are also agricultural chemicals that can be used to partially make up for the lack of sufficient chilling in many crops, such as cherries. A better understanding of the physiological and genetic basis of plant dormancy, which is still relatively poorly understood, might point to additional strategies to manage tree dormancy, which will help growers cope with the agro-climatic challenges that lie ahead, the researchers suggested.
Funding for this study was provided by the California Department of Food and Agriculture and The Nature Conservancy.
About UC Davis
For 100 years, UC Davis has engaged in teaching, research and public service that matter to California and transform the world. Located close to the state capital, UC Davis has 31,000 students, an annual research budget that exceeds $500 million, a comprehensive health system and 13 specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and more than 100 undergraduate majors in four colleges — Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering, and Letters and Science — and advanced degrees from six professional schools — Education, Law, Management, Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing.
Media contact(s):
• Minghua Zhang, Land, Air and Water Resources, (530) 752-4953, mhzhang@ucdavis.edu
• Eike Luedeling, Plant Sciences, (530) 574-3794, eluedeling@ucdavis.edu
• Pat Bailey, UC Davis News Service, (530) 752-9843, pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
it is much easier to predict 50 years ahead than to predict a few months ahead”.
Considering that it won’t be verified in most peoples lifetimes, I would suppose that’s right.
A few random thoughts here. First I remember while growing up here in the central valley it was normal for the frost report to be given for farmers. I’m actually certain Anthony remembers probably having to do those. At the time I also remember driving past grove after grove of fruit trees with smudge pots under them.
That is why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when so many groves were damaged by winter frost. My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to. [Note for those unfamiliar with them a smudge pot is basically an oil burning stove that is put out in the orchard to raise the temperature of the area above freezing. You use a number of these to heat the entire orchard.]
Additionally since the mid 50’s several artificial lakes have been created. I’m know that general weather patterns around Oroville changed as the lake filled. So are they taking these kinds of factors into account when analyzing temperature trends?
Isn’t California noted for it’s fruits and nuts? 😉
obstruksion (09:36:44) …and worried indeed, as gwrs nuts are threaten by climate. 🙂
Tom T:My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to..perhaps they got cheated by all the global warming propaganda.
That is why I was so surprised a couple of years ago when so many groves were damaged by winter frost. My question was… why didn’t the farmers simply put their smudge pots out like they used to. [Note for those unfamiliar with them a smudge pot is basically an oil burning stove that is put out in the orchard to raise the temperature of the area above freezing. You use a number of these to heat the entire orchard.]
I believe they’re now illegal, thanks to global warming fighting CARB regulations.
REPLY: They also aren’t very effective and the smudge causes damage to the stomata of the tree leaves as well. Wind turbines and helicopters do a better job of circulating air in orchards, water sprinkler systems are also employed. These are only effective to certain temperatures though. – Anthony
The few times we get into freeze conditions, the farmers will hang lights to slightly increase ambient temps, and use big fans to circulate the air in the fields, which helps prevent freezing of the citrus and other fruit still on the trees.
With any more help, there will be nothing grown in
California.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/how-green-was-my-valley-californias-economic-meltdown/article1230646/
This is a general comment on global warming. ( don’t see any recent posts that I can reply to with these remarks.)
Why doesn’t this site publish or link to real scientist climate sites if you claim to be objective? Why not also link to the IPCC’s and Real Climate websites, two of the most authoritative sites?
Why would you not be skeptical of your own biases, realizing that you yourself–nor any one person, for that matter–could possibly know enough about the climate to determine whether global warming is occurring mostly because of human activities? There must be consensus, reached by trained scientists, based on science using agreed-upon standards and procedures, reviewing each others’ work–again with agreed-upon standards and procedures–for any science to be deemed valid.
RealClimate.org is a website run by real climate scientists. Not weathermen, news reporters, commentators, hoaxers, pseudo-scientists or egotistical, bloviating engineers, all of whom mistakenly believe they can gather and interpret the data that only real, trained scientists can.
A 2007 report by the US Senate: http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report casts doubt on the work of real scientists by quoting such nonscientists and purporting their credibility. This website reveals the lack of credibility behind such doubters:
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/general/36323-yet-another-article-global-warming-8.html#post1083641
From the site, Tea on Tuesday writes:
“You can nearly count the number of actual climate scientists on that list with your fingers.
The list is largely composed of economists, TV weathermen, social scientists, and people in fields unrelated to climatology. Most of the wittings from these “experts” are things like newspaper articles and editorials in various forms of print media. The few peer reviewed studies coming from the group are mostly published in Energy and Environment, ~snip~. It has an absurdly low scholarly circulation, it’s peer review process is highly abnormal (namely: authors get to chose who edits and reviews their submissions), and it was founded for the express purpose for publishing ~snip~ papers on climate change. Those that have published studies in more legitimate and mainstream journals have been seriously criticized for extreme methodological shortcomings. The ~snip~ want you to believe that their work is being supressed, but it’s no different than with ~snip~. They are being ostracized and shunned from the climate community because they are doing ~snip~ science.
“The more important point though is that no one on that list has offered any serious, legitimate, scientific dissent. A list of names, no matter how qualified, is meaningless if their position isn’t justified. Most the people on that list (some of them aren’t even ~snip~ and never have been) are rehashing the same old ~snip~ claims that the rest of the climate community moved on from years ago.”
When people make claims about the validity of various aspects of the climate, global warming and climate change, it’s vital to verify their credentials and ability to do climate-related science, and not continue to spread ~snip~.
~snip~ Some of these articles include “Lindzen: point by point,” “George Will-misled and misleading,” and “Freeman Dyson’s selective vision.”
On disinformation
For example, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are responsible–as are many others ~snip~ for spreading a great deal of disinformation and misinformation. They are populist radio broadcasters who don’t use logic, and certainly aren’t trained in science to any degree.
They tend to trust only those with a similar conservative mindset, which is a dangerous bias for two reasons:
1) It reinforces their own point of view, excluding facts and information that contests their ideology
2) The bias is toward keeping a status quo that protects their personal interests based on capitalism, a system that leaves out many from its economic benefits. The status quo has proven inadequate to serve the needs of the poor, underprivileged, and the main ecological needs and health of the Earth.
If capitalism had run rampant in the 1960s without protest and blowback from the ecology movement, much more of the world and the US would likely be as polluted as Love Canal, New Jersey–a dangerous toxic waste dump and reminder of the excesses of the typical corporate agenda: make money and grow, no matter what. Just look at the rampant pollution in China, a country with virtually no citizen voice in governmental affairs and industrial progress (or regression, as it is ecologically in many cases).
This website, while it reports apparent facts and offers some valuable investigative reporting, also ~snip~
“So why do the ~snip~ still use arguments that are blatantly false? I think the most obvious reason is that they are simply not interested (as a whole) in providing a coherent counter story. If science has one overriding principle, it is that you should adjust your thinking in the light of new information and discoveries – the ~snip~ continued use of old, tired and discredited arguments demonstrates their divorce from the scientific process more clearly than any densely argued rebuttal.”
I appreciate skepticism–it’s at the heart of science. We must trust someone. In fact, to survive we must trust many. We are too interdependent not to do so.
But if we misplace our trust in the wrong people, what we get are regimes run by those who only have their narrow interests in mind: Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Congo, Bush-era (both of them) United States, North Korea, China, Russia and many other regimes that ~snip~ real science, human rights, the need for ecology–which are all intertwined with values that sustain life and health.
There are too many who subsume human health and sustainability to economic power and aggression.
This will never be a perfect world. ~snip~ already screwed it up too much.
But those of us who are both compassionate and intelligent must keep working to act as stewards of species and people without voices in the existing power structure, and keep those without those qualities out of power and influence. Please be on our side–the side of everyone and every species, in balance with our planet.
For a way to influence what research happens on earth and climate issues, anyone, scientist or not can go to: http://www.icsu-visioning.org/
The website, run by The International Council for Science (ICSU), is taking comments till August 15, 2009:
“The International Council for Science (ICSU) has launched an online consultation to gather questions that will help direct the future of Earth system research. ICSU invites the scientific community—natural and social scientists—as well as technology experts, decision-makers, and the general public, to contribute by visiting http://visioning.icsu.org, until 15 August 2009.”
The title of this thread is SOOOOOOOOOOOO not PC. ROFLMAO 😀
Just as local weather does not predict global weather (“all weather is local”)–and meteorologists, of all people, should know this–anecdote is not the singular of data.
Bottom line: The effect of climate or irrigation or whatever on California fruits and nuts isn’t necessarily a bellwether for the entire planet–or a chink in the vast array of evidence for human causes of global warming.
This is the same sort of obviously flawed reasoning that people who doubt global warming use: “But this winter was a lot colder than last year’s.” I’ve actually heard this comment several times in conversations on the topic!
One more datum to demonstrate global warming IS happening:
Mr. Watts, your entry in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Watts_(blogger)#cite_note-8) notes the report issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that refutes skepticism about rising temperatures:
The report asks “Q: Is there any question that surface temperatures in the United States have been rising rapidly during the last 50 years?”
A: “None at all.”
In other words, the surface of the US is warming, despite the skepticism of local weathermen like yourself. You’re not the smartest person in the world, and I hope you start listening to those who are smarter and better trained in climate science.
Excessive global warming is human caused, poses a threat, and is created by pollution. Whether you’re pro-pollution (just about equal to a global warming contrarian) or against, we’d better do something to reduce it–drastically.
By the way, several reports have noted that a new, green sustainable economy will create and increase the number of jobs worldwide. And that the devastating consequences of global warming, if unchecked, will cost trillions of dollars as well as untold human and wildlife suffering.
Too many nuts in California for AGW or any other fantasy to have an impact.
offtopic:
I just wanted to make Mr. Watts aware of a new youtube post directed at him, should he wish to respond:
part of the video makes the claim about various ‘markers’ such as flower bloom times, plant growth, mountain ice melt, etc. to state the earth is warming. The poster also takes issue in particular with the surface station project.
It seems that San Joaquin minimum winter temps have increased from 1906 to 2006 by about a degree, while the Sacramento Valley temps decreased. IF the current rate continues all of the current farmers and most of their grandchildren will be dead before anyone notices that the bad crop years are increasing.
Wow! So much…
California is known as the Granola State, since everyone who isn’t a fruit or a nut is a flake (with apologies to the few Californians who ARE sane, but they already know who they are and, in my experience, already know who they’re surrounded by).
Well, now we’ve heard concern about the fruits and nuts FROM the flakes. Amazing.
Here’s a clue: the REASON it’s easier to predict 50 years ahead is that NOBODY WILL CALL YOU ON IT. Not only do you not have to be remotely close to right, but nobody will care (or remember) either way.
I wonder why it seems to be so easy for climate scientists to avoid looking out the window. And why are they all so obsessed with straight trendlines??? There’s never been one in the past, what makes anyone think there will be in the future?
I’ve spent enough time in California to know that ANY agriculture changes are more likely to be due to direct human meddling than “climate” anyway.
Sorry for rambling, but… seriously, the article is just so… obtuse!
Thought UC Davis was the very place funded by CA taxpayers to produce those potential cultivars with lower winter chill requirements. Instead of chiming in on the monotonous AGW chorus, why don’t these pampered, parasitic twenty-somethings get busy on some useful work? Maybe they could develop a minnow that doesn’t need water?
During World War II it was decided to give a special subsidy for rice farmers in the Imperial Valley (desert East of San Diego). In order to replace rice supplies from Asia, an act of Congress gave a special subsidy for Colorado River water for rice growers in Southern California. The subsidy continues unchanged to this day as far as I know. There was much complaining about it w few years back from farmers of other crops who must pay hundreds of times more per acre foot of water than the rice farmers who are paying the same amount now that they were paying in 1942 but as it is guaranteed by the US Congress, it would take an act of Congress to reverse it.
So that is why you have rice, one of the most water intensive crops there is, growing in the middle of the California desert while people complain that there isn’t enough water.
“To provide accurate projections of winter chill, the researchers used hourly and daily temperature records from 1950 and 2000, as well as 18 climate scenarios projected for later in the 21st century.”
Which weather stations were used for the temperature records ? No urban heat island effect ?
crosspatch (12:51:19) :
To substitute is human: To subsidize endlessly is Congressional sandbagging.
Think Life:
You go on and on, setting up your strawman that the climate has warmed, then you knock down that strawman, you brave strawman killer, you [“One more datum to demonstrate global warming IS happening”].
But in fact, no one argues that global warming hasn’t occurred [although recently the planet has been cooling, despite a steady rise in CO2, thus falsifying the runaway global warming scaremongering by the AGW crowd]. You don’t need to convince anyone here that global warming has been occurring since the last great Ice Age.
Cherry-picking an arbitrary “50 years” is very convenient for your strawman, no? Had you arbitrarily picked 5 years instead, you would see that the planet has been cooling.
The planet has been gradually warming from the LIA, and the climate fluctuates above and below that trend line on a multi-decadal time scale. Sometimes the Earth cools for decades; sometimes it warms for decades. But human activity has nothing measurable to do with it [if it does, let’s see the real world measurements proving AGW].
You then change your claim to… “Excessive global warming is human caused, poses a threat, and is created by pollution.” All false statements. Every one of them.
I challenge you to try and prove those claims, one by one. Not with always-inaccurate computer models, but by measurable, real world, falsifiable, reproducible evidence. You know, the kind of evidence required by the Scientific Method.
If you fail to provide solid evidence showing that GW is caused by human activity, or that the small fraction of a degree rise in temperature is any kind of a “threat”, or that the small, entirely natural rise in temperature traceable back to the LIA is ‘created by pollution’ [Whiskey Tango Foxtrot??], then you are simply another True Believer drinking the CO2=AGW Kool Aid. But believing doesn’t make it so.
You have zero empirical evidence that human activity is causing global warming. Zero! Prove me wrong. If you think you can.
On the other hand, if you are able to provide solid evidence [reproducible and falsifiable, please, as required by the Scientific Method; no GCM ‘evidence’ allowed], then you will be well on your way to convincing me. But keep in mind that you will be the very first one who has ever produced that kind of evidence anywhere. Your polemic above is merely an emotional rant by a crank who avoids the Scientific Method like the plague. That will get you nowhere here. This is the winner of the “Best Science” site [while your censorship-prone realclimate echo chamber got only one-tenth the number of votes as WUWT, and their site traffic is far less].
Finally, your last paragraph tells us all we need to know about your wacky belief system: “…a new, green sustainable economy will create and increase the number of jobs worldwide.”
Only an economic illiterate would believe that new, government created, bureaucratic “green” jobs, paid for with $Trillions in new taxes on productive workers, will produce on balance a net increase in the total number of jobs. Where is the aggregate demand curve for those jobs? Inquiring minds want to know.
By that wacky assumption, a 100% income tax would bring about a zero unemployment rate through the creation of endless government make-work green jobs. Hey Presto, problem solved… Not.
Better give that silly conjecture a little more thought, since we’re talking about the real world here — not the fevered imaginings of red faced, spittle-flecked, alarmist arm wavers.
Yes, Global Warming in California is threatenging the fruits and nuts, the real ones. You see, the hot air source has been previously located: The State Capitol.
Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to desalinate.
Maybe we could use saltwater to cool a nuclear power
plant. No, no, then we’d have to contend with all that
pesky steam. What was I thinking? Stupid boy!
ThinkLife just Read your Blog after your Wiki based assault on logic and sanity in the blogosphere against Anthony Watts.
I have never read a more partisan and vile attack on conservatives, if this is your starting position for conversations then be sure you will not be treated well when you leave your Utopian Progressive Socialist bubble and venture out into the real world, IMO you are simply a poster child for the “Intolerant Left” that claims to be the “Progressive” movement when in reality you are supporting a regressive society ruled by intellectual elites ( like during the Middle Ages when Advisors and Fanatics were the true Power behind the Thrones of Europe) ruled by telling the unwashed what they should do and think.
Your intellectual bigotry is far more dangerous than any racial or class distinctions you attribute to conservatives. You seem to think you are better than others based on the simple fact that YOU cannot accept that when presented with the same information anyone with any sort of intelligence could possibly come to another conclusion than you have been told to support (see AGW for example). You did not decide this you fell victim to an appeal to authority, just as you base your comment on.
So you attack the character and integrity of these people who you feel should be shunned from society for their “disruptive” views but claim free-speech to allow you to spread your intolerence, you marginalize and persecute them not based on race, gender or class but on their ideas. Which runs counter to the Progressive Position of acceptance and tolerence but because it is not gender, race or class based then you justify it internally.
If that is not a a segregationist and bigoted policy based on traits you feel make someone inferior than please explain what is. I would attempt to persuade you on AGW but you are beyond any sort of reasonable discourse on the subject. In the future I would suggest less confrontation will elicit a better respone than this one.
Think Life – you need to do fact checking. Now where is Love Canal? (As an aside, you can always count on an ideologue to mention past media worthy environmental issues, as a means of demonstrating their “street cred” and get the attention of the masses. “Oh yeah, Love Canal … verrrrry bad … US capitalists … verrrrry bad … ergo, oil companies / fossil fuels / current American life style … verrrrry bad).
Obviously , ThinkLife has never visited this site before .