Guest essay by David Archibald
This post drew attention to the similarity between the recent warm decades and the period leading up to the extremely cold year of 1740. Now let’s investigate how a 1740-type event might play out. This graph shows the average of the monthly temperatures for the years 1736 to 1739 plotted with the monthly temperatures of the year 1740:
With respect to growing conditions, the 1740 season was a month later than the average of the previous five years and the peak months of the season were 2.5°C cooler. To get a perspective on how a repeat of 1740 might affect growing conditions in the Corn Belt, Bill Fordham, advising the grain industry in the Midwest, has kindly provided an update on the current season:
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“So far here in the center of the Midwest, the 2013 growing season is almost identical to 2009 in regards to Growing Degree Days (GDD).
In 2009 48% of the corn was planted by May 12 and 62% was planted by May 19.
In 2013 18% of the corn was planted by May 12 and 71% was planted by May 19.
In 2009, we never received a killing frost until November 5 when the low was at 28F. The Midwest had a huge crop that was wet and light test weight, but never got killed by a frost. In 2009, the total GDD accumulation from May 15 thru September 30 was 2,530 GDD.
The bulk of the corn planted in the Midwest ranges from 2,300 to 2,700 GDD (based on Fahrenheit). With the volcanoes that have been erupting in Alaska and Russia, especially with Mt Sheveluch erupting to 7.4 miles on June 26, I will be surprised if we get through the month of September in 2013 without an early killing frost. If the heat dome and high pressure ridge stays centered in the west and over Alaska until Labor Day, the clockwise rotation will pump the cold air south over the Midwest along with the ash. There are millions of acres at risk in IA and MN, that are 2-3 weeks behind normal.
After silking, it takes 24-28 days to reach the Dough Stage when kernel moisture is about 70% and about 50% of the total dry matter has accumulated in the kernel.
After silking, it takes 35-42 days to reach the Dent Stage when kernel moisture is about 55% and about 70% of the total dry matter has accumulated in the kernel.
It takes about 55-65 days after silking for a corn plant to mature and for the kernel to reach black layer, normally at 30-35% moisture.
A killing frost, <30F, will do damage whenever it occurs before black layer, the earlier the frost, the more severe the damage. A hard killing frost <28F can reduce the yield up to 25%, or more depending on the variety, even a week before black layer.
In 1974 I experienced severe loss on some late planted corn when I got rained out on May 7 and didn’t get back in to finish planting for 3 weeks. The May 7 corn yielded 190 bushels per acre and the May 28 corn yielded 90 bushels per acre, same variety.”
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Based on Bill Fordham’s experience of 1974, planting three weeks later reduced the crop yield by 50%. If the peak growth months of June, July and August are 2.5°C (4.5°F) cooler as per the CET record of 1740, that would reduce the GDD by 414.
A repeat of the climate of 1740, with a late planting and reduced heat in the three months prior to harvest can be expected to reduce crop yield by well more than 50%.
Time to buy corn futures
lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm
Have you considered the possibility that the Sun’s output was higher during the Maunder Minimum than today? Sunspots diminish the output of energy [they are darker and cooler]. With no sunspots there would not be a diminution of solar output…
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As an interesting note I have. Its is also possible that due to the weakening of solar magnetic fields that the sun spots will fade. The internal motor (so to speak) is not welling them to the surface. Those same magnetic fields affect earths fields allowing in greater amounts of ionizing radiation. This allows an increasing cloud formation and from some of the latest papers in the works, also seems to also have a diminishing effect on earths ocean circulations. Admittedly there is much more work to do on this theroy.
The suns fusion reaction may be “stable” but what appears to be minor fluctuations may have major impacts on the earths climate. The June drop of 1W/M^2 to earths surface has many looking for why (causation/correlation) as a stable reaction should not have such. It may be an indirect cause originating from the sun. What Changed is the question today.
Fun time to be observing the sun and how it affects the earth.
The agility of the modern farming system is amazing. The wholesale switching of seed crops to adjust for weather conditions on a continent wide scale!
Wayne Delbeke: thanks for prodding me to follow the link. I’m not a big fan of wiggle matching things. Nature is particularly bad with exact intervals of things (except when those things are in free-fall like an orbit or something). Even things that are fairly cyclical in nature have broad error ranges. For example, we can see that there are interglacials but we can’t tell exactly when this one will end. We can see Bond events, but don’t know for certain when the next one will start. We can see PDO in the records but don’t know exactly when it will switch phase. Also, 1740 was a one shot deal, a single outlying year. The conditions that are currently setting up might argue more for a more moderate but longer term cooling. How can one predict a single year oddity like that? They can’t, in my opinion.
Bill H says:
July 5, 2013 at 4:25 pm
It’s is also possible that due to the weakening of solar magnetic fields that the sun spots will fade. The internal motor (so to speak) is not welling them to the surface. Those same magnetic fields affect earths fields allowing in greater amounts of ionizing radiation.
What seems to be happening is that the magnetic fields do come to the surface [thus increasing TSI], but the [unknown] process that concentrates them into visible spots is operating less efficiently. During the Maunder Minimum [and other Grand Minima] the magnetic field was strong enough to modulate cosmic rays even more vigorously than in recent decades.
The June drop of 1W/M^2 to earths surface
There has been no such drop. Due to solar rotation there is typically a 1W/m2 variation during each 27-day rotation. Perhaps that is what confuses people. No need to concoct exotic explanations for the usual state of affairs.
Here in ND, we thought the winter would NEVER end this spring. It was absurd, even for ND. And it started earlier. We basically had Halloween, and then WINTER! Some farmers did not finish planting until a few days ago, in JULY. Its disgusting! OK, I’m better now. Its just weather, not climate.
John Phillips says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:00 pm
Be glad you have the Bakken!
wws says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm
1740 came out of the blue. Temperatures remained lower afterwards suggesting something changed in the Sun. The US grows enough grain to feed 1.2 billion vegetarians, so you are not going to starve, perhaps. The world is cooling towards the conditions of the 19th century. What would be a very good exercise for somebody to do would be to use the available daily temperature records in the northeast US for the period 1800 to 1850 and plug them into a crop growth model for the Corn Belt using modern seed varieties and practices. And see what the year to year variability in production is. And from that determine what stock levels would be prudent. One of the reasons that 1816 was such a bad year was not so much the cold itself but that the frosts came at the wrong time in the corn’s growth cycle.
With respect to science content, sometimes one learns from life experiences. Prior to the 1987 stock market crash, I had warned a client that a crash was coming. After the event he complained that I had not been emphatic enough. While the whole of the scientific establishment is still spewing forth papers on the horrors of warming, nobody is looking in detail at what cooling will do. The last work in that vein was in the early 1980s after the 1970s cooling period.
Another thing. A friend of mine who has read very widely remembers reading in his youth that the early explorers in the Midwest encountered frosts in midsummer. The Corn Belt will get some polar amplification.
wws says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm
1740 came out of the blue. …suggesting something changed in the Sun. … One of the reasons that 1816 was such a bad year was …
Likely both 1740 and 1816 were the results of volcanic eruptions.
Blue sky says:
July 5, 2013 at 2:17 pm
The warmers can’t pick a warm year out of the past because their belief system is based on CO2. If you plot the 10 years up to 1738 against the 10 years up to 2013, they are very similar with warmer winters than the mid19th century. Conditions at this moment are almost the same as what they were 275 years ago.
“The June drop of 1W/M^2 to earths surface”
Assume the sun’s output went down by a full Watt for a year.
What would happen to the global average temperature?
Estimates anyone?
asuume it went down by a watt for 10 years? 30 years?
The big question for me right now is what is dampening the UV output on the sun. This is the portion of heat that we are not receiving. Is it due to dampening of the suns magnetic fields?
Looking at satellite data, part of that heat never made it to the earth. What would cause a loss in transmission? One thing we see in nuclear melt downs (I know its a fission reaction) as the reaction continues it leaves waste in the flow. This waste slows the reaction and can dampen certain wave lengths being emitted. This is why we place certain kinds of materials to not only stop the reaction but contain it. I would presume that the suns reaction would function much the same. Is it simply a natural cycle on the sun? (The sun fuses and the molecule created becomes a dampening agent. Get enough of it present in the active flow and it affects the reaction as a whole.. As the reaction slows the magnetism draws it center mass and clears the active part of the reaction, which then resumes. IF THE MAGNETISM IS WEAK the reaction does not clear quickly and a period of reduced output would continue or grow more pronounced.) this is just a thought about the suns cyclical process.
We know what band the loss is in. We simply do not know what is causing the diminished output on the sun and why. One thing we do know, a prolonged loss of just 1W/M^2 can cause a drop of 2-4 deg C on earth in short order. Add to that a compressed atmosphere which will allow heat to escape from the polar regions more easily and we have a rapid cooling combination.
So many possibilities, So many questions… But that is science.
Steven Mosher says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:32 pm
“The June drop of 1W/M^2 to earths surface”
Assume the sun’s output went down by a full Watt ‘forever’
What would happen to the global average temperature?
It would go down 0.05C. If not ‘forever’ but for a shorter period then the inertia of the oceans would make the drop somewhat smaller.
lsvalgaard says:
“Likely both 1740 and 1816 were the results of volcanic eruptions.”
Then this Archibald article could be interpreted as a prediction of volcanic eruptions?
I say that either facetiously or I’m asking a serious question.
But suppose a major volcanic eruption were to occur now, during this current temperature lull.
What sort of aftermath would the world see? A catastrophe because of the current population?
Bill H says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:44 pm
The big question for me right now is what is dampening the UV output on the sun. This is the portion of heat that we are not receiving. Is it due to dampening of the suns magnetic fields?
The UV is going down because the number of sunspots is going down. But the total heat we get from the sun is going up because there are fewer dark spots to subtract from the output.
The sun fuses and the molecule created becomes a dampening agent.
The heat is generated in the Sun’s core and it takes about 250,000 years for it to diffuse to the surface so any shorter fluctuations will be attenuated away. The variations we see are caused by variations of the magnetic field near the surface.
One thing we do know, a prolonged loss of just 1W/M^2 can cause a drop of 2-4 deg C on earth in short order.
No, only 0.05 deg C. The percentage change in temperature will be a quarter of the percentage change in radiation.
Steve Oregon says:
July 5, 2013 at 5:53 pm
But suppose a major volcanic eruption were to occur now, during this current temperature lull.
What sort of aftermath would the world see? A catastrophe because of the current population?
Depends on the size of the eruption. If Yellowstone would blow, most of humanity would die, any lesser eruption would result in a smaller effect. During the 1739 eruption on Iceland 20% of the population died.
During the 1739 eruption on Iceland 20% of the population died.
I was curious whether your 20% was just Iceland or world-wide (which obviously would be very hard to believe) and my brief search indicates that the 1739 eruption might have been “Tarumai Japan Aug., 1739 “
Interesting, NLC’s increasing since 2007 now. Little something I put together. 2007 – 2013 all taken on July 3 for ref. https://twitter.com/NJSnowFan/status/353323903956946944
James Smyth says:
July 5, 2013 at 6:38 pm
During the 1739 eruption on Iceland 20% of the population died.
I was curious whether your 20% was just Iceland or world-wide (which obviously would be very hard to believe) and my brief search indicates that the 1739 eruption might have been “Tarumai Japan Aug., 1739 “
Just Iceland, and there was also an eruption in Japan, perhaps adding to the world-wide effect.
Basically what Archibald is saying that due to the late planting and the recent uptick in Northern Hemispheric volcanic eruptions, combined with the potential for a cool summer due to low solar activity and changes in the Pacific surface temperatures, if there is an early frost then the damage to the nation’s crops would be substantial. This all comes down to one thing, an early frost. We will soon know.
“lsvalgaard says:
July 5, 2013 at 1:22 pm
…
Have you considered the possibility that the Sun’s output was higher during the Maunder Minimum than today? Sunspots diminish the output of energy [they are darker and cooler]. With no sunspots there would not be a diminution of solar output…”
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
Mr Archibald’s article is interesting because it focuses on agriculture which is one of mankind’s endeavours most sensitive to weather/climate variability. It’s often overlooked by city dwellers. The piece is very US centred and perhaps could be made more universal by crop comparisons with other countries. Cheers from sunny, but coolish Sydney.
tchannon says:
July 5, 2013 at 7:25 pm
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
Is based on an obsolete paper by Wang, Lean, and Sheeley from 2005.
Question for Leif: What was the cause of the cooling coincident with the Maunder minimum?
Leif demands very exacting science, which is useless to small farmers like myself. (I have a toy farm, but it still it is a farm.) .What use is it to me to hear a forecast is basically impossible?
Around here there was a wave of immigrants from Finland around 1900, and those folk knew about cold, and the best way to judge the oncoming winter is to scrutinize the old-timer Finn’s woodpiles. When they get very big, watch out!
I have an internet friend who has a toy farm in Pheonix, where the main problem this time of year is keeping things alive in the 115 degree heat. He asks me probing questions about farming in the north, and when attempting to think what the heck my philosophy was, I decided my calculations happened too swiftly for Leif to understand.
I may have an IQ significantly lower than Leif’s, but if you put us both out in left field in a baseball game, and a fly ball was hit our way, I could calculate where the ball was going to land without even thinking about it. Lief would meanwhile be struggling away with some newfangled version of a slide rule, and be so engrossed the ball might bounce off his head.
There are so many things going on at the same time, in the chaotic system we call “weather,” that two volcanic eruptions of the exact same size can have significantly different effects. So can two solar events. It all depends on the timing. If the AMO has the ocean sloshing one way, the effect will be different from what will occur if the AMO has the ocean sloshing the other way.
As I explained to my friend in Pheonix, “I call this my Slosh Theory, and it is based upon a highly scientific experiment I did at age three in the bath tub. Timing was everything. If you got the timing down, you could generate such a tremendous wave that half the water left the bathtub and wound up on the floor.
My mother did not appreciate my research and stunted my scientific growth, which explains why I became a writer.”