Guest essay by David Archibald
In trying to understand how the US agricultural system will respond to lower solar activity, and thus a posited colder climate, we have to go way back. As far back as the 1970s in fact when it was still possible for academics to publish books and papers on the effects of climatic cooling. In 1977, Reid Bryson and Thomas Murray published a book entitled Climates of Hunger. The book is old enough that Stephen Schneider is credited with reviewing the manuscript, from his time as a cooling alarmist.
In their discussion of the climate of the Corn Belt, they start with the results of the archaeological excavation of an Indian village called Mill Creek Site B which was occupied from 900 to 1400 AD. This site is in northwest Iowa in the heart of the modern Corn Belt:
To put that into context, there were possibly over one thousand Indian villages on the Great Plains from Iowa to Colorado during the Medieval Warm Period. In the early 19th century when the explorers who spearheaded the European invasion of the American heartland crossed the plains, they found no corn-farming villages. They left behind the last of the agricultural tribes as they moved out onto the grasslands – the Akira and Mandan on the Missouri and the Pawnee in eastern Kansas – not to find corn fields again until reaching the Pueblos in the southern Rockies. Remnants of the villages were uncovered in the early 20th century as layers of debris covered by wind-blown soil.
The Indians at Mill Creek farmed corn and hunted elk, deer and bison as well as other animals. This is how the excavation data plotted up relative to time:
Figure 3.3 shows the percentage of each of the major hunted species at Mill Creek Site B over the 500 years from 900 to 1400 AD. Bison eat grass and deer browse on trees. The increasing proportion of bison reflects a drying climate with trees being replaced by grass. Figure 3.4 shows that the number of animals in the diet peaked in the 12th century. Figure 3.5 shows that the number of potsherds remained high after bone counts first dropped. The authors believed that corn production and potsherds were related because pottery was needed to store, cook and serve corn. The potsherd count, if read as reflection of the total number of people in the village, indicates that the total number of people in the village did not decline immediately with the reduction in game. The numbers of bones and sherds both dropped rapidly after 1300. By 1400 there were none, and no Indians either. Farmers did not occupy the region again until the mid-19th century.
In their analysis, Reid and Bryson place a lot of emphasis on wind direction. For example Fort Winnebago in Wisconsin kept weather records from 1828 to 1845. Fort Winnebago is now the town of Portage. In 1968, Professor Wahl at the University of Wisconsin-Madison compared the temperatures recorded then with records from 100 years later. His results are shown in the following table:
In every month except March, the 1800s were cooler with the biggest differences in autumn – almost seven degrees in September. Month-by-month comparisons are more important than yearly averages because they have greater implications for food production. Spring and fall temperatures determine the length of the growing season. Calculating the effect on growing degree days (GDD), the climate in the early 1800s had 680 fewer GDD. This would reduce agricultural yield by 27% relative to a 2,500 GDD corn hybrid.
Wind direction was also different with more northerly winds in the 1800s. For Septembers, winds came from the northwest and northeast 47 percent of the time in Fort Winnebago. One hundred years later, Portage records shows winds from these directions 27% of the time. Wind direction also controls rainfall with westerly winds being drier. Reid and Bryson make a stab at calculating this effect in the following figure:
This is Figure 3.1 on page 32 of Climates of Hunger. It is a map of the United States showing July precipitation decreases to be expected with a slightly expanded flow of westerlies, based on 20 years of modern weather records. Shades areas have less rainfall when westerlies are expanded. The combination of lower temperatures and lower rainfall will be a real killer. It killed off the Indian farmers on the Great Plains.
David Archibald, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C., is the author of Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century Will Be Nasty, Brutish, and Short (Regnery, 2014).
Do we know if UV radiation from the sun changed from 900 to 1400 AD
http://www.temis.nl/uvradiation/UVI/uvief0_w.gif
From milodonharlani on July 7, 2014 at 4:18 pm:
Have you never heard of air drying clays? There was a piece recently on the local Home and Backyard show, people still use it to make plates and other dinnerware.
Clay is ubiquitous, practically anywhere you can dig down so many feet and find a layer. If you ever come across an old portable coal forge with the cast iron pan carrying the warning “Clay Before Use”, they don’t want fireclay, just a layer of common clay to protect the metal.
So you dig it up, shape it, dry it, use it. It’s not a durable as fired pottery, but still usable.
And afterwards, you discard it out in the open, it gets wet, maybe buried in moist ground. Why would you not expect it to break down, get soft again, and leave no trace for the future archaeologists to find?
Here’s an example listing of a commercial offering, it’s very easy to find some:
https://www.baileypottery.com/clay/airdryclays.htm
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 7, 2014 at 5:05 pm
There is certainly clay in the Willamette Valley, so air drying is a theoretical possibility, however 18th & 19th century explorers, trappers, traders & settlers did not report seeing any kind of indigenous ceramics among the inhabitants of the Valley or in the larger NW Coast Indian cultural province.
https://www.anchoragemuseum.org/galleries/alaska_gallery/NW_indian.aspx
They used stone, wood & basketry. Nowadays Indian artists put clay inside some baskets, but that’s not reported by 18th or 19th century observers whose accounts I’ve read.
PS: You are aware, are you not, that it’s rainy nine months out of the year in the Willamette Valley, so the climate is less conducive to use of air dried plates & bowls than Mexico? And that wood & stone are abundant there?
Australia’s having its own “polar vortex” winter at the moment, a lot milder than America’s winter, but we’re getting unaccustomed lashings of snow and freezing rain. Even up in the North, on the edge of the tropics where I live, its cold. We’ve been running the heaters full time, and its still chilly.
So I guess the cold weather gets drier after all the moisture drops out of the atmosphere as snow.
From milodonharlani on July 7, 2014 at 5:40 pm:
They are using air dried clay objects in Pennsylvania, now, which is not as arid as Mexico. Your link says those Indians made plank houses. Obviously if they can be kept indoors then rain is not a problem.
Nor would it be expected for rain to be a great issue. If the air-dried clay vessel is suitable for storing water for a while, then why would rain be expected to harm it? Degradation is a longer-term issue.
Just how primitive are these tribesmen? Didn’t they have fires to keep warm, suitable for drying out nearby clothes and pottery?
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
July 7, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Of course they could have made air dried clay objects indoors, but they frequently lived, cooked & ate out of doors, although less so during winter, of course. The main reason why pottery of any kind was not observed among NW Coast tribes is because they had so much wood of the highest quality.
Western red cedar was used not only to make houses, but bowls, plates & spoons, as well as its roots for basketry. Bark was also commonly used for cooking & eating. You’re free to assume that NW Coast Indians used air dried clay objects, but there is no evidence to that effect, & indeed, why would they, living as they did among such abundance? Same reason why they didn’t farm (besides of course lacking suitable domesticated crops), when sticking wapato in the mud for starch & gathering berries for sugar & vitamins works so well & you can practically walk across the spawning salmon which jump into your net at the falls, catches so easily smoked with alder wood. After cooking, you can eat them off a piece of bark, which you then throw away or burn.
In short, there is no reason to assume ceramics of any kind nor to suppose they made it.
Non farmers may not recognise the possibility of a plant pathogen that could have caused the local cultivars of corn to be non viable for sustenance. It happens all the time and our modern plant scientists fight a never ending battle against mutated pathogens. In the past people just starved or found new food. Nature doesn’t care if we thrive or die.
milodonharlani says:
July 7, 2014 at 3:47 pm
KRJ Pietersen says:
July 7, 2014 at 3:56 pm
On Amazon, 57 of 1088 reviewers gave Empire of the Summer Moon one star. After reading a few of those poor reviews, I wouldn’t spend the time or money on the book, but perhaps those who have read it would care to address the 1 star reviewer’s criticisms, which point to sensationalism, hyperbole, and “excessive use of superlatives.” i.e. “the most powerful tribe in American history.”
From the first 1 star review on Amazon, link above:
And another:
Pass.
Steve P says:
July 7, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Many object to the way he portrays Comanche life, which never the less is accurate.
Maybe there was a more powerful tribe in the 19th century, but how many not only stopped the advance of European civilization in the US, but actually rolled back the frontier, resisting the power of Mexico, Texas & the federal government for decades?
But of course feel free to pass.
Farmer Gez says:
July 7, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Possible, but less likely with less highly bred strains & in isolated areas. Corn continued flourishing in areas less affected by the climate changes observed in the proxy data for the period. Nor did farmers return with new strains from elsewhere during the next centuries, as the climate got even worse.
Not sure if this is relevant. Charles C. Mann postulates in his book “1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus” that about 80-90% of the Indians died off around 1500 because of introduction of European domestic animals like pigs. Pigs were quickly adopted and spread faster than the Spanish. Unfortunately they carried the usual range of Old World disease. And the fact that the animals and people lived in close proximity contagion was fast and deadly.
He also postulates that as the number and size of villages grew the Indians began herding Bison. Both to make hunting more efficient and to keep the Bison from overrunning the villages. If true could be another reason for the increase in Bison.
20th Century was the wettest in Western Canada.
http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/environment/extreme-weather/devastating-dry-spells-drought-on-the-prairies/a-drought-filled-future.html
The threat of flooding in Canada and U.S..
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/07/08/0300Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-80.99,49.25,730
Thank you, David, for taking up this little gem of anthropology and Global Cooling as it impinges on my homeland. I’m a little jealous, as no doubt the anklebiters are, at how seamlessly you move between disciplines with your deceptively simple style of expression in English.
It was obvious last winter, the Arctic cap of air had not shifted over the Canadian Shield from Siberia, rather it had expanded. This is more, IMHO, than a simple confluence of PDO and AMO in the negative phase, which coincidence persisted 5 years or so in the 1930’s. The states of Kansas, Oklahoma, and the panhandle of Texas are already drier than during the Dust Bowl.
milodonharlani says:
July 7, 2014 at 4:18 pm
I had not picked up on this distinction between agriculture and cultivation before now. Thanks for knowing whereof you speak. The paucity of same has grown tiresome hereabouts.
I’m reading this and wondering what ever happened to the precautionary principle?
I guess there’s precautions and precautions.
Didn’t the dustbowl and severe drought happen in the 1930s when it was warmer? I suppose it might also depend on which part of the interior you are.
My guess is that with global warming, the interior US will be either drier, wetter, or about the same. Same if it cools.
Few people appreciates role of the Earth’s magnetic field in changes in the circulation.
Of course, these changes are closely related to the activity of the solar magnetic field. Much about it knows Vukcevic. Regards.
Measurements have been made of the Earth’s magnetic field more or less continuously since about 1840. Some measurements even go back to the 1500s, for example at Greenwich in London. If we look at the trend in the strength of the magnetic field over this time (for example the so-called ‘dipole moment’ shown in the graph below) we can see a downward trend. Indeed projecting this forward in time would suggest zero dipole moment in about 1500-1600 years time. This is one reason why some people believe the field may be in the early stages of a reversal. We also know from studies of the magnetisation of minerals in ancient clay pots that the Earth’s magnetic field was approximately twice as strong in Roman times as it is now.
http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/images/dipole_mo.jpg
Perhaps an ice age occours when the tropics heat up and the Hadley cells extend all the way to the poles depositing the moisture at the poles as the air decends and brings the cold air back down over the Northern latitudes…
milodonharlani says:
July 7, 2014 at 4:49 pm
“IMO cold & drought are often linked. Cold air holds less moisture than warm air. The polar regions are cold deserts. Glacial phases of Ice Ages are generally drier as well as colder than interglacials, such as now.”
Generally yes:
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html
Though through the colder parts of solar minima precipitation will increase in some areas as the atmospheric circulation patterns shift, and with increases in El Nino and positive Indian Dipole events.
Eric Worrall says:
July 7, 2014 at 5:42 pm
Australia’s having its own “polar vortex” winter at the moment, a lot milder than America’s winter, but we’re getting unaccustomed lashings of snow and freezing rain. Even up in the North, on the edge of the tropics where I live, its cold. We’ve been running the heaters full time, and its still chilly.
So I guess the cold weather gets drier after all the moisture drops out of the atmosphere as snow.
==============
Hi Eric, yeah mate in Qld emailed it was 6c where he lives this am.
I saw that Warwick got to -6C this am as well
even WA has copped some fairly bitter cold, stranding hikers etc,
we’re having reported to 100k winds hitting Vic this evening, along with icy cold n rain.
it is winter though:_0
unlike the usa asia and eu copping snow hail etc in summer!
“That would put the years 1829 to 1842 right in the middle of a cool cycle. ”
I agree. AMO was in deep trough or cold 1790-1850 and PDO was fluctuating but negative as well during the period in question. , Studies done by McCabe et al 2004 showed that this combination of negative AMO and negative PDO results in droughts of 6 years or more in the area under discussion and central US . The last time we had this combination was 1965-1975 and again 1895-1915. Both of these periods were cold as well
Ozspeaksup here’s cause.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t70_sh_f00.gif
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=100.69,-45.88,637
Polar vortex at 17 km.
David Archibald wrote:
“In their analysis, Reid and Bryson place a lot of emphasis on wind direction. For example Fort Winnebago in Wisconsin kept weather records from 1828 to 1845.”
It was notably cooler 1836-1845 in CET: http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet.dat
That run of cold events should repeat 179 years later from Autumn 2015 to 2024.
I suppose that would depend on your definition of The Precautionary Principle.
Isn’t that the requirement that we should take mandatory and immediate global totalitarian dictatorial actions now that will kill millions of innocents each year between now and 2100 and cause billions more people to suffer trillions of harm and suffering extreme pain and disruption while only enriching elite dictators and bureaucrats worldwide by restricting energy use and artificially increasing its price and availability to take actions that will not reduce the possible chance of a beneficial 2-3 degree increase in global temperatures?
Is that the precautionary principle you demand? or is there a different one that offers some chance of global improvement other than increasing reliable energy availability and reducing its cost?