Guest post by David Archibald
I will be giving a lecture in Washington in early June on my way through to the Bahamas. Following are the slides that pertain to the agricultural impact of the current de Vries cycle event – the Eddy Minimum.
The stippled line is the current Canadian wheat-growing area. The heavy black line is what that would shrink to if temperature fell by one degree Celsius. Friis-Christensen and Lassen theory applied to the temperature records of the northeastern US derive a temperature decline of 2.0 degrees Celsius to the latitude of the US-Canadian border. It therefore follows that Canadian agriculture will be back to trapping beavers by the end of this decade, as it was in the 17th century.
Many years ago, in the time before global warming corrupted most branches of science, researchers looked at the consequences of warming and cooling. Newman in 1980 was such a researcher. This is a figure he provided of where the US Corn Belt would shift to with one degree of warming, the dashed line, and one degree of cooling, the solid line. The current corn growing area is shaded. His calculation of 144 km per degree C is in line with my estimate of a 300 km shift southward in growing conditions.
And corn is a big business in the United States:
The large amount of ethanol production is a good thing in that it provides a buffer of capacity in the climatic event under way. The mandated ethanol requirement has brought the future forward.
Archeological records tell it that it has happened before. The map in the following graphic shows how Indian maize growing moved south in response to the onset of the Little Ice Age (Reiley 1979).
But it can get worse than the standard de Vries cycle climate response. That can be overprinted by a major volcanic eruption:
Mt Pinatubo erupted in 1991 and 1992 averaged 0.5 degrees C cooler as a consequence. The Dalton Minimum’s major volcanic eruption was Mt Tambora:
My generation has known a warm, giving Sun, but the next will suffer a Sun that is less giving, and the Earth will be less fruitful.
The Australian Prime Minister spoke recently of the benefits of reading Bible stories. The Bible story that all governments should be paying particular attention to is the one in Genesis about the seven years of fat followed by the seven years of lean. Otherwise another Biblical character will make his appearance – the Third Horseman of the Apocalypse, Famine.
References
Newman, J. E. (1980). Climate change impacts on the growing season of the North American Corn Belt. Biometeorology, 7 (2), 128-142.
Riley, T. J., and Friemuth, G. (1979). Field systems and frost drainage in the prehistoric agriculture of the Upper Great Lakes. American Antiquity, 44 (2), 271-285.
Roger Carr,
Yes, you overreacted [FYI. “overreacted” is spelled as a single word].
IMO, moderators don’t handle Leif Svalgaard’s behavioral problems well.
He seems to be the only person given a license to insult.
Well, it’s the moderators’ personal tragedy. I can only shrug and turn away.
[Reply: Moderation @WUWT has always been done with a light touch. It is a trade-off against censorship. Readers can decide for themselves the merits of the various comments. ~dbs, mod.]
“The mandated ethanol requirement has brought the future forward.”
Can we leave the future where it is, please, or we’ll have nothing to look forward to,
and the present will get old really quickly. I predict there’ll soon be talk of putting
the future behind us, and then we’ll only be able to move sideways.
Killer frosts are a problem in that scenario, a reduced growing season is one thing but a frost at a vulnerable early stage of growth will lose a years production hence no crop.
The 1740s in Europe experienced this on a wide scale, famine followed.
It certainly puts the Ethanol program in a new light, a buffer for the future, brillint strategy. Suberb article.
Alexander Feht says:
May 13, 2011 at 1:21 am
Roger Carr
I tend to agree with Alexander, surely a scientist should persuade/educate rather than insult. Insults neither win arguments nor convince of the correctness of a theory.
Thats just my 2 pence worth.
A couple of things bugged me about this article. First; if I understand the “corn belt” as the area where one could conceivably grow corn, the Corn Belt Map is way off base. Corn grows north of Lake Erie and Ontario and east of Lake Huron in significant quantities. These areas are well outside the supposed “corn belt” shown on the map. Second; why does the author feel the need to tell us he’s on his way to the Bahamas?
ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/CO/Snow/snow/watershed/daily/basinplotco11.gif
Not only really wet this year in Colorado, but really cool. Normal peak of snow pack is April 15th. This year it is May 3rd.
Unfortunately, here in Denver it was very dry. Lost a lot of my flowers during the winter to dry conditions.
But really wet up in the mountains. I’ve noticed it has been really wet along the Mississippi as well.
Leif Svalgaard, I see that you have used an ad hominem argument in response to my comment on your original auto-epistemic comment, both of which are logical fallacies. You have thus proven that you do in fact fall into the category of those with an axe to grind here. Why do you feel so threatened by theories such as FCL? I have an idea, but perhaps you would be so kind as to explain, so that others do not entertain similar thought as to your motivations. Thanks.
Alexander Feht says:
May 13, 2011 at 1:21 am
IMO, moderators don’t handle Leif Svalgaard’s behavioral problems well.
He seems to be the only person given a license to insult.
Leif is as much entitled to his opinions as anyone else. Even if a lot of them are wrong and he doesn’t have as firm a grasp of celestial mechanics as he does of computer programming. If he insults you, just insult him back. Be warned it is a bit like wrestling a greasy pig though. You sully yourself, and the pig enjoys it.
Sleepalot says: (May 13, 2011 at 1:51 am)
Can we leave the future where it is, please, or we’ll have nothing to look forward to etc…
Beautiful, Sleepa!
Hey boys
Calm please.
Insults from an expert should be taken as compliment to your views and ideas, even if not so to you as a person. When the ideas can’t be demolished a salvo followed by crescendo of insults is due.
Some fine examples of this can be found here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/10/latest-solar-cycle-update-from-the-space-weather-prediction-center/
Just click ‘find’ and enter ‘vuk’
If insults havn’t worn you down, than if you have a website that is also attacked with exquisite precision as in here.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/WEB-Page%20attack.htm
This is also known as DoS or ‘denial of service’, not usually practiced by nice people.
would love to have seen the slides properly but when one clicks on them the same size image appears (at least in Firefox)
I am not familiar with the various agricultural areas of the North American landmass and therefore not able to comment on the specifics of this article, but growing up and beginning my working life in an agricultural setting where year-round grassland farming was the norm gives me enough basic information to know that if the climate shifts a couple of degrees downward, the world’s agricultural industry in general will become more costly and more difficult to maintain the current level of production. The use of glass and poly-tunnel green houses houses has become commonplace for growing vegetables and fruits, but supplying these with heat and nutrients in the face of the bizarre energy policies in countries such as the UK will cause the production costs of food to soar, including the costs of producing meat and dairy products.
The value of the article is not in its predictions or specifics but in the cautionary note it takes regarding the effects of mild global cooling. If anyone doubts this, there are excellent English, European and North American local and regional folk-histories of the LIA which quickly dispel any comfort in forecasts of an impending cool cycle.
Bruce Cobb says:
May 13, 2011 at 3:43 am
Why do you feel so threatened by theories such as FCL?
No threat as such to me. What is a threat to society in general is if policy be based on bad science [of either stripe]. You may not think so [as is your right]. My question was directed towards your justification for accepting that societal policy be based on bad science.
“Vancouver had something like the coldest April on record”
May is no better. New snow on the local mountains. From Grouse:
New Snow
24hrs: 0 cm / in
48hrs: 0 cm / in
7 days: 6 cm / 2.36 in
http://www.grousemountain.com/Winter/mountain-report/
Hugh Pepper says:
May 12, 2011 at 5:04 pm
Erm, drought is, mostly, a result of cold. Cold is what David is talkin’ ’bout.
Smile at Theo’s comment btw.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Landscheidt
In 1989, Landscheidt forecast a period of sunspot minima after 1990, accompanied by increased cold, with a stronger minimum and more intense cold which should peak in 2030 [1], which he described as the “Landscheidt Minimum” [2] His work on solar cycles is cited by global warming skeptics [3] to argue that observed warming is not anthropogenic and will soon be reversed, based on an assumption that fluctuations in climate are controlled by solar activity.[4]
In 1989, Landscheidt forecast a period of sunspot minima after 1990, accompanied by increased cold, with a stronger minimum and more intense cold which should peak in 2030 [1], which he described as the “Landscheidt Minimum” [2] His work on solar cycles is cited by global warming skeptics [3] to argue that observed warming is not anthropogenic and will soon be reversed, based on an assumption that fluctuations in climate are controlled by solar activity.[4]
Insults are tools of those with weak arguments. If they had the facts on their side they would present them. Without facts they must resort to insult.
If it turns out we are in a new minimumm, then it should be named after the scientist that predicted it. Eddy is an emotional choice, but he did not predict the minimum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Landscheidt
Michael Schaefer:
Thanks for the interesting links. I bookmarked the first of them.
I respectfully submit the following link as a candidate for addition to your list:
http://www.physorg.com/news97227410.html
Cheers
I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that ideas about solar influence on climate get attacked. Plate tectonics got off to a similarly rocky start.
Bruce Cobb says:
May 13, 2011 at 7:09 am
I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that ideas about solar influence on climate get attacked.
The idea is not attacked. The particular FCL ‘theory’ was. E.g. the longest solar cycle in memory coincides with the warmest decade in memory. Now, FCL claims that that is due to AGW. Perhaps you agree with that. Other ‘explanations’ for failure include that that there are unknown lags that have unknown effects and make comparisons impossible. You buy that one too?
I remember in my youth, when the Peace River area of Northern Alberta/BC, was one of the few remaining areas, that one could still acquire “free” land via homesteading. Many people took advantage of this and started new farms in the area.
These early years were crop failures upon crop failures because of the short growing season. Now, due to a slightly warmer (longer grow season) many of these homesteads have become viable. Any cooling will result in the abandoning of these farms.
Corn has also become a major crop in Canada, due to slight warming. A 1 or 2 degree of cooling will push this crop out of most parts of Canada, presently doing well today.
Meanwhile, Canada’s population has swallowed whole, the idea that warmer temperatures in Canada represent some sort of catastrophic change. Silly people. GK
Dr. Dave in Dayton says: May 12, 2011 at 8:57 pm
Eric Anderson says: May 12, 2011 at 3:11 pm […]
It is not the temperature variation during the growing season that is the critical factor. It is the impact of 1 degree C on the start and end of the growing season. One degree lower translates to roughly 15 days later in the start of the growing season and 15 days earlier for the first hard frost (shich kills the corn or soybean plants. The rule for farmers in Minnesota (southern region) was that if planting was delayed until June (1-10), then you planted 90 day corn and prayed that the frost would hold off until 15 September. This happened a lot in the ’50′s through 70′s; not so much in the ’80′s and 90′s; but it is happening again in the 2000′s.
This is my greatest concern. In west central Colorado we just experienced a winter that was five weeks longer than ‘normal’. I was interested to note the rufus or copper-colored hummingbirds that migrate through here mid-summer, came and left two weeks early in 2010. The other species that summer here also left two weeks early. We experienced sub-zero temperatures about three weeks early in mid-November. Ten days ago we were experiencing 18-22°F night time temps, now up 10°. The hummingbirds arrived three weeks late this year. The poor things were dodging palm-sized clumps of snow when they showed up on the 11th to get to their feeder.
Obviously, these little critters with their tiny brains could tell what was coming 2-4 months in advance, or could see what was already in process. I can only ask, “What the heck is it?”, because we are either not measuring it, or think it is not relevant if we are.
vukcevic says:
May 13, 2011 at 4:27 am
When the ideas can’t be demolished a salvo followed by crescendo of insults is due.
We have come to the point where exposure of dishonesty is seen as an insult…
Bruce Cobb says:
May 13, 2011 at 7:09 am
I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that ideas about solar influence on climate get attacked. Plate tectonics got off to a similarly rocky start.
Your argument is invalid, just as this one:
“I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that ideas about the sun having no influence on climate get attacked. Plate tectonics got off to a similarly rocky start.”