Guest Post by David Middleton
Yesterday, WUWT covered the issue from one angle, and blew Hertsgaard’s riduculous claims out of the water. Today, here’s another independently arrived at conclusion that suggests Hertsgaard’s claims are pure fantasy.
It is apparently becoming too warm to grow wheat…
Bakken Oil Boom and Climate Change Threaten the Future of Pasta
Dec 10, 2012 12:00 AM EST
Temperatures are rising. Rainfalls are shifting. Droughts are intensifying. What will we eat when wheat won’t grow.
A world without pasta seems inconceivable. Mac-and-cheese-loving children across the United States would howl in protest. Italy might suffer a cultural heart attack. Social unrest could explode in northern China, where noodles are the main staple.
But if humans want to keep eating pasta, we will have to take much more aggressive action against global warming. Pasta is made from wheat, and a large, growing body of scientific studies and real-world observations suggest that wheat will be hit especially hard as temperatures rise and storms and drought intensify in the years ahead.
[…]
Three grains—wheat, corn, and rice—account for most of the food humans consume. All three are already suffering from climate change, but wheat stands to fare the worst in the years ahead, for it is the grain most vulnerable to high temperatures. That spells trouble not only for pasta but also for bread, the most basic food of all. (Pasta is made from the durum variety of wheat, while bread is generally made from more common varieties, such as red spring.)
“Wheat is a cool-season crop. High temperatures are negative for its growth and quality, no doubt about it,” says Frank Manthey, a professor at North Dakota State University who advises the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Already, a mere 1 degree Fahrenheit of global temperature rise over the past 50 years has caused a 5.5 percent decline in wheat production, according to David Lobell, a professor at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.
[…]
This is really funny because it wasn’t that long ago that it was too cold to grow wheat…
Little Ice Age
by Edna Sun
February 15 , 2005 — It was only a few hundred years ago that the earth experienced its last ice age. Global temperatures started falling during the 1300s and hit their lowest points in the late 1700s and early 1800s. New Yorkers could walk from Manhattan to Staten Island across a frozen harbor, while Londoners held “Frost Fairs” on a solid Thames River. Glaciers advanced in China, New Zealand, and Peru, and snow covered Ethiopian peaks. Diseases, aided by the change in climate, spread quickly throughout Europe and Asia. Iced waters delayed shipping from ports, growing glaciers engulfed farms and villages, tree lines receded, and agriculture deteriorated, leading to centuries of poor harvests, famine, and social unrest. Though the average global temperature dropped only one to two degrees Celsius below what they are today, the cold spell nevertheless drastically affected life at this time.
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Global temperatures naturally fluctuate slightly from year to year. However, in the past 10,000 years, there have been three relatively long global cold spells. The Little Ice Age (LIA) is the most recent and best documented, especially in Europe
It may have had a greater effect on history than its predecessors because it immediately followed several centuries of unusually warm temperatures. Between 800 and 1200, Europe basked in a warm spell known as the “Medieval Warm Period” (MWP); temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than they are today.
[…]
Fatal Harvest
During the LIA, summers were wet and unusually cold and the growing season was shortened. Widespread crop failure resulted in famine that killed millions of people. To avoid starvation, people would eat the planting seed for next season, which created more of a shortage the following year.
During the MWP European farmers primarily grew cereal grains such as wheat, barley, and rye, which flourished. But the long thin stalks of these crops made them vulnerable to the strong winds and heavy rainfall that came during the LIA. The temperature drop in northern Europe made it difficult to raise these grains and many farmers gave up trying. Less grain was produced, creating a severe shortage and raising prices.
[…]
“[A] mere 1 degree Fahrenheit of global temperature rise over the past 50 years has caused a 5.5 percent decline in wheat production.” Yet wheat and cereal production flourished during the Medieval Warm Period, when “temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than they are today”… 
Obviously wheat can’t handle any temperature. The LIA was too cold. Today it’s too warm for wheat, even though the wheat flourished during the warmer MWP. I guess the Goldilocks temperature for wheat must have occurred sometime between 1975 and 1980, since Newsweek reported that we were on the verge of a new ice age in 1975 and anthropogenic global warming began with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 (intentional sarcasm).
Whenever I run into an Alarmists Gone Wild non sequitur, I always check the math.
Wheat production data for the period 1961-2010 are available from FAOSTAT and temperature data can easily be downloaded from Wood For Trees.
This explains why wheat liked the Medieval Warm Period and disliked the Little Ice Age.
The only explanation for this sort of nonsense, is Alarmists Gone Wild…
“Wheat is a cool-season crop. High temperatures are negative for its growth and quality, no doubt about it,” says Frank Manthey, a professor at North Dakota State University who advises the North Dakota Wheat Commission. Already, a mere 1 degree Fahrenheit of global temperature rise over the past 50 years has caused a 5.5 percent decline in wheat production, according to David Lobell, a professor at Stanford University’s Center on Food Security and the Environment.
Wheat yield and production have more than doubled over the past 50 years.
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Sir William Herschel noticed wheat prices rose when sunspots were at a minimum, creating cooler weather, reducing wheat production –
From Jennifer Marohasy, links to article by Christopher Booker
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2009/06/wheat-crops-and-sunspots/
Dodgy Geezer says, “Woodfortrees is down, and has been for some time now.”
http://www.woodfortrees.org/ is fine here in the UK. Ironically, I can’t reach http://www.isup.me/ (DNS server failure on Site5’s servers).
Ah, the Pasta Crop climate threat was documented by the BBC back in 1957
The death cry of Newsweek.
Insane to the very last second.
Dodgy Geezer says:
December 13, 2012 at 4:14 am
“Woodfortrees is down, and has been for some time now.”
No problems here.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/
the fact the big agris been pushing canola and corn rr gmo crud, and then add kyoto removing farmland use in aus as well, then prices for wheat were under the cost of oats canola etc until this year when decent prices began to be paid..
the EXspurt is a drip indeed.
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) says:
December 13, 2012 at 4:55 am
Folks, apologies for the WFT downtime, it was caused by an IP address allocation cockup at my hosting provider. Should be fixed now but it may take some time to propagate through DNS.
Thank you Paul. Thank you, thank you. So many of us use your excellent resource that half our side of the Internet would be folded back upon itself if WFT truly fell over.
What is the effect on wheat of an increase in minimum temperatures? I think pasta for the world will be safe. Here is a peer reviewed letter to Nature.
We’ve all seen pictures of wheat harvest in progress, with huge combines cutting down vast acres of golden fields, but none of those pictures were taken in North Dakota.
The ND growing season is too short for wheat to ripen on the stalk, so the wheat is swathed and wind- rowed, then after drying in the field, the rows are picked up via special attachments to the combines.
Is anyone the least bit surprised anymore, by the agenda- driven pronouncements from academia?
If you just take a look at the2004 book “Canicules et glacieres – Histoire humaine et compare du climat” (“Heat waves and glaciers: human and compared history of climate”), by the French renowned historian Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie, you will find a detailed analysis of climate from the middle 1330 until 1740, with ad accurate reconstruction (sometime at the “day by day” level) of cereal prices on the most important markets of the time, clearly showing the direct correlation between “bad” climate and agriculture during most of the LIA.
This detailed analysis is a clear confirmation of the early book (1967 !) by the same Author, “Histoire du climat depuit l’an 1000” (“History of climate since 1000 AD”): the English edition (1973) of that book brings the evocative title “Time of feast, time of famine”: in fact, the new book shows clearly the equation: cold weather = famine; warm weather = feast.
The conclusions of the new book are very sharp: in Europe, between 1300 and 1740, there’s been a lot of very severe food crisis (episodes of continental – scale famine that lead to the death by starvation of hundreds of thousands of people, sometime millions): well, almost 90% of this episodes were caused by COLD weather, just a few by hot weather.
Another thing to remember: as clearly pointed out by Jared Diamond in “Guns, germs & steel”, the most common cereal grains have been “selected” from the corresponding natural species, by our ancestors, 5.000 years ago, in the Middle East; also the corn, it has been selected in Central America.
In both cases, they come from very WARM places: do you know any edible vegetable, of relevant use, “born” in a COLD place ?
Just my 2 cents…
No need to look as far as Australia to see that high temperatures don’t hinder wheat production – Texas produces far more wheat than either of the Dakota’s. And it’ll take a heck of a lot of warming to get the Dakota’s even close to Texas temperatures.
Too warm for wheat? Wasn’t it first cultivated in the Middle East?
The Chinese have been making rice noodles for centuries.
Seems like they invented them.
But then the Italians invented a way to eat them by producing the fork.
Silliest story I’ve seen … not only is wheat very successfully grown in very hot places in Oz, there are also millions of hectares of great farming land in places such as Belarus, Ukraine Russia, Mongolia etc which would only benefit from being a little warmer …. likewise Canada’s growing seasons would be extended.
Just a headliner for simpletons.
Here in the US we grow wheat across a variety of temperature zones, from Texas to North Dakota. During the summer, there has got to be close to a 20 degree temp delta from Texas to North Dakota and we have plenty of wheat. I think someone started early on their legal pot habit…
Dario from NW Italy says:
“In both cases, they come from very WARM places: do you know any edible vegetable, of relevant use, “born” in a COLD place ?”
Yes. Rutabaga which is originally a Scandinavian coastal plant. And cranberries.
Not exactly major food crops though.
Durum acres have indeed been trending down in North Dakota, but that is mostly due to better prices for growing less risky crops, like other types of wheat. http://www.agweek.com/event/article/id/19640/
This is so foolish it should be shoveled with the remainder of the organic fertilizer used on wheat field. It frankly does not deserve serious or even satirical discussion.
It would appear that wheat production in 2010 was indeed down on 2009 by about the stated percentage. Mainly due to a drop in production in Russia and Kazakhstan. (drought based)
Luckily Brazil was up by 18%!! (Not that they are a real major producer but it does show that temp is not much of an issue).
Wheat production has since gone up again and expectations are that total world cereal production is up by about 3% for this year over 2011.
If it can grow well in Brazil and Australia some of the current wheat strains do not seem to be that much influenced by temperatures. No doubt that the strain in Canada might have trouble with the temp in Brazil but that is a variety issue and nothing that genetic tinkering can’t solve.
I remember when I was living in the more northern parts of Europe that the wheat harvest tended to be below average if it was a colder then usual summer.
So the temp link is weak at best and likely to be only at the variety level.
We know that more CO2 will make it grow faster, there must be a yield per hectare statistic somewhere to show the relation between CO2, faster growth of the plant and bigger kernel size (or not for that matter).
But what was that again: correlation is not necessarily causation. The same thing the realists claim will be thrown back at them now by the believers, after all it is heresy to claim that CO2 is actually good for something.
Water and land use seem to be more of an issue.
If the worldwide cereal crop is up it has to be growing somewhere.
It would appear that the Italians can continue to enjoy pasta and pizza and Mc Donald’s will continue to serve wheat based hamburger buns rather then rice buns.
It is likely that the professor wants to do more research on this ‘vital’ link between temp and wheat harvest size so we will hear more of this. Hunger makes the funds flow as much as climate research. Every agricultural researcher, nutritionist, dietician and what not will soon be on the AGW hunger bandwagon.
woodfortrees (Paul Clark) says:
December 13, 2012 at 4:55 am
Should be fixed now
Thank you! Sometimes people do not appreciate what they have until they lose it. By the way, the wti part still stops at August. Is this being discontinued?
Here is good link.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/wheat/usda-wheat-baseline,-2012-21.aspx
Yield is up planted acreage is down.
Uh, yeah, we gotta make the world colder so the plants will grow better. Everyone knows food grows better the colder it is. Makes perfect sense. Just because I got to eat fresh tomatoes all the way DEEP into October doesn’t mean a darn thing. Pole beans? E’t ’em right off the vine all the way to Halloween. Heirlooms just keep blooming and blooming. I got 3 separate crops of beans and maters to come to harvest, but I’m sure this has nothing to do with the mild autumn this year. Nope. Nothing at all. By all means – make it colder, fret about the warmth. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go down and pull up another jar of beans. I’m loaded.
Maybe we should stick with the only foods that the human genome is prepared to use for food. Namely meats, vegetables and fruits. The grains unleash a far worse insult on our bodies than they do our vehicles via ethanol.
Fewer grains is a blessing – not a curse.
And, er…. of course it won’t happen anyway.
In an unrelated crop, now that WA and CO have legalized marijuana, what are the young growers going to discover? Maybe the wheat farmers will take notice. 😉
http://bestbudsgreenhousesupplies.com/co2.htm
“Why should I care about co2? Outdoor carbon dioxide concentrations (400-600 ppm in spring/summer) are constantly being replenished by billions upon billions of plants, animals, and microorganisms. In the greenhouse or indoor growing area, plants are isolated and using co2 in large amounts. Levels of co2 can drastically drop below 400 ppm, which causes slow photosynthesis and growth. Low co2 levels fool your plants into thinking it’s fall or winter. Your plants will become stressed and will quickly stop growing. It is important for your growing area to maintain co2 concentrations of at least 400 ppm. Increasing co2 levels above 400 ppm promotes faster growth and sturdier, hardier plants. Higher co2 levels of 1000 to 1500 ppm increases photosynthesis dramatically. The faster the photosynthesis the faster water and nutrients are transformed into sugars and plant solids which result in higher yields of crops, fruit, or flowers. Having co2 equipment in your growing area gives you a definite advantage and should be among the serious grower’s tools.”
Dario from NW Italy says:
“…[D]o you know any edible vegetable, of relevant use, “born” in a COLD place ?”
tty says:
“Yes. Rutabaga which is originally a Scandinavian coastal plant…”
Hey, he said edible.