This sentence…
“One of the panel’s most striking new conclusions is that rising temperatures are already depressing crop yields, including those of corn and wheat. In the coming decades, farmers may not be able to grow enough food to meet the demands of the world’s growing population, it warns.”
…is in this LA Times story by babout the latest IPCC report which has so much gloom and doom in it, one of the lead authors, Dr. Richard Tol, asked his name to be taken off of it for that very reason.
Problem is, the agricultural data doesn’t match the LATimes/IPCC claim, see for yourself:
Source: USDA data at http://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/ plotted by Dr. Roy Spencer.
Not only is the LATimes/IPCC claim about agriculture false for the world, but also the USA:
Source: USDA Data here compiled by Dr. Mark J. Perry at the Carpe Diem blog.
In fact, U.S. Corn Yields Have Increased Six Times Since the 1930s and Are Estimated to Double By 2030 according to Perry.
Note that temperatures in the US Corn belt aren’t rising, but models are, and as we know, the IPCC prefers model output over reality.
Source: USHCN data from NOAA, CMIP5 model data plotted by Dr. Roy Spencer
Why is it that checking such simple facts are left to bloggers and independent thinkers like Roy Spencer, instead of “professional” journalists like ?
Maybe he’s just too lazy to check facts like this? Or, is it belief mixed with incompetence?
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An addition to my comment at 11:55:
The locational reference in this one is to the area north of Pittsburgh, PA. “Kiski” is the nickname of the Kiskiminetas River (e.g., the Kiski Valley), a tributary of the Allegheny River that meets with the Monongahela River at Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River.
http://triblive.com/neighborhoods/yourallekiskivalley/yourallekiskivalleymore/5836317-74/ambrose-farmers-planting#axzz2xf8otl4R
This is what helps skepticism to grow.
It’s really funny how so many of the projected bad things are bound to outnumber the benefits of global warming such as longer growing seasons, drought resistance in crops, winter mortality etc.
The facts also show the one real impact of policy and that is the distortion on corn production to follow the incentive to use food for ethanol fuel. The environment and taxpayers suffered in the process.
I was watching The Weather Channel last night. They were furiously promoting the IPCC presser and all the scare mongering over global warming. Without any sense of irony they then went directly into the blizzard warnings for an ice storm … on March 31st. Hullo??
If it keeps getting colder, we will see crop reductions. So Tony may have his predictions right even if he’s a bit off regarding causation.
Last one; I’ve got to go:
http://dairybusiness.com/dairyline_headline.php?item=Relentless+Cold%2C+Wet+Weather+Further+Delays+Planting
This one will explain the difference between the Malthusian Tony Barbosa and the real world as expressed by Pam Johnson (corn grower in Iowa) and the National Corn Growers Association President. Note the mention of “work ethic.”
This is what the WG II report says:
Many studies of cropping systems have estimated impacts of observed climate changes on crop yields over the past half century, although they typically do not attempt to compare observed yields to a counterfactual baseline, and thus are not formal detection and attribution studies. These studies employ both mechanistic and statistical approaches (7.3.1), and estimate impacts by running the models with observed historical climate and then computing trends in modelled outcomes. Based on these studies, there is medium confidence that climate trends have negatively
affected wheat and maize production for many regions (Figure 7-2) (medium evidence, high agreement). Since many of these regional studies are for major producers, and a global study (Lobell et al. 2011) estimated negative impacts on these crops, there is also medium confidence for negative impacts on global aggregate production of wheat and maize. Effects on rice and soybean yields have been small in major production regions and globally (Figure 7-2) (medium evidence, high agreement). There is also high confidence that warming has benefitted crop production in
some high-latitude regions, such as Northeast China or the United Kingdom (Jaggard et al., 2007, Supit et al., 2010; Chen et al., 2010; Gregory and Marshall, 2012).
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap7_FGDall.pdf
Missing “(” inserted.
The Figure is not yet available.
it’s like arguing with “flat earthers” or maybe fundie xtians (the 6000 year old bunch) no amount of real evidence will convince them otherwise that their belief system is up for discussion…AGW is not the only great myth that’s become mainstream and blindly reported on over and over and again and no amount of evidence will sway the mindless rhetoric…oh well
It is possible that US grain production could decrease in the next several decades as the Ogallala aquifer get depleted? the IPCC crowd would probably like to blame this on global bull warming. Now if only they could find the missing heat.
The hysteria of these phonied up AGW kooks is annoying.
The LA Times is like the SF Chronicle: no fact checking, even in their own backyard. The Chronicle regularly headlines sea level rise doom stories for the San Francisco Bay Area, which center around sea level rising 4 to 6 feet by 2100. Even the IPCC doesn’t predict such an unbelievable increase in sea level. The IPCC predictions are hard to understand, but appear to predict a sea level rise of 20 to 38 inches by 2100. Catastrophic, if true. The IPCC also says in their Summary for Policy Makers that warming to date already is causing problems, such as almost-Hurricane Sandy, and flooding from other strong storms. So let’s look at sea level from a West Coast perspective. We are lucky to have tide gauge records for each of our four major coastal cities – San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Seattle – that each cover 100 years or more. However, for all four cities, the 2013 sea levels are slightly less or about the same as they were in 1941, and all four show sea level falling since 1997. Also all four cities show that sea levels rose more and at a faster rate before 1950, and are now falling when they should be rising rapidly, according to CAGW “experts”.
Is the whole US West Coast rising on surging plates? Maybe, but it wasn’t before 1950. And Seattle to San Diego is 1,065 miles – a long distance to synchronize tectonic plate activities for over 100 years.
Unlike the IPCC’s report, you can easily verify these facts. Just go to the Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level website, and click on station ID numbers, (http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/ ) then go to the annual record at the lower left-hand side for each station (city). San Francisco (Station ID 10) has the longest tide gauge record in the Western Hemisphere, and since 1854 the rate of sea level rise is less than 3 inches per century. And is now negative.
It’s too bad the San Francisco Chronicle reporters don’t have a “nose for news”. Then they would actually have something interesting to report, such as how IPCC predictions don’t hold true.
April 1st?
In my above, please change “the lower left-hand side” to “right-hand”.
“Based on these studies, there is medium confidence that climate trends have negatively
affected wheat and maize production for many regions ”
Wonder how they reconcile this with the fact that Western Canada has had higher than historical average wheat crops over the past 10 years, with a bumper crop last fall?
NBC led with this last night, including the bit about corn and wheat. The entire report ranged from somewhat misleading to completely untrue albeit with an emphasis on the latter. How can they get away with this?
CO2 has had the exact polar opposite effect on agriculture as stated. Indisputable benefits in the trillions.
It’s like all these people had lobotomy’s on the part of their brain that leaned about the proven LAW of photosynthesis in elementary school and then, had transplanted in a synthetic replacement programming their brains to only recognize CO2 as pollution, ignoring all the powerful evidence in the world that completely contradicts that.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf
It’s bad enough to program global climate models with the wrong mathematical equations to represent the physics of the atmosphere, then defend their lack of skill but to ignore the massive benefits of increasing CO2 can only happen to somebody that is:
1. Corrupt
2. Blatantly effected with confirmation bias and brainwashed
3. Very naive and brainwashed
4. Ignorant and brainwashed
So it would seem that the majority are brainwashed and being led by the corrupt!
Since when does a reporter check facts? Only if they do not like the meme!
This suddenly-discovered vulnerability of crop yields to slight temperature rises makes the work of Norman Borlaug and his “Green Revolution” even more remarkable as the dramatic improvements in yields around the globe were achieved when it was actually warming. Those achievements are hard facts which are rather more convincing than another surge of model output from the alarmists.
German press was delighted to posit the same thing; just like the LATimes person they are too stupid to understand the difference between absolute decline and decline of the rate of growth, and too lazy to quickly find a statistic, and too ignorant to know even
http://www.gapminder.org .
And that’s a level of ignorance you actually gotta select for these days.
Zea Maise is semi-tropical. The corn belt is not. So that claim was very silly. This year, because of the coldest fall and winter in more than a hundred years, the frost has gone down to six foot. Some have predicted that planting, which would normally start in a couple weeks, will be put off until June. Think about what -that- will do to yields. . .
Barboza has a long history of climate alarmists articles in the L A TImes which are supported by any credible science. But then the L A Times is one of the news media venues which have an absolute ban on not allowing any rational climate letters being published in the paper. Like so many of the climate alarmist media outlets these organizations are so in bed with climate alarmism that all that is allowed in print is climate fear propaganda.
Climate change would have depressed yields, except that the farmers have been using Borlaug’s GMO trick to hide the decline.
bealtine says:
April 1, 2014 at 12:35 pm
it’s like arguing with “flat earthers” or maybe fundie xtians (the 6000 year old bunch) no amount of real evidence will convince them otherwise that their belief system is up for discussion…AGW is not the only great myth that’s become mainstream and blindly reported on over and over and again and no amount of evidence will sway the mindless rhetoric…oh well
********************************************************************************************************************
You mean the same “real” evidence that drives CAGW which also drives evolution and age of rocks theory?
“Journalists” are not journalists anymore. They are agenda driven cult followers.
In fact, they want to be the “messengers” of the green religion, so they do so.
Facts are the first things to be discarded in such an arrangement.
mark 543 Apr 1 12:34pm quotes the WG II report :
“These studies [of cropping systems] [..] estimate impacts by [..] computing trends in modelled outcomes. Based on these studies, there is medium confidence that climate trends have negatively affected wheat and maize production [..]“.
They just used the models. They said it themselves. 1984 is 30 years late.