From Kansas State University, where they apparently don’t look at crop reports like this one:
MANHATTAN, Kansas — A recent study involving Kansas State University researchers finds that in the coming decades at least one-quarter of the world’s wheat production will be lost to extreme weather from climate change if no adaptive measures are taken.
Vara Prasad, professor of crop ecophysiology and director of the USAID Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab at Kansas State University, is part of a collaborative team that found wheat yields are projected to decrease by 6 percent for each degree Celsius the temperature rises if no measures to adapt to extreme weather fluctuations are taken. Based on the 2012-2013 wheat harvest of 701 million tons worldwide, the resulting temperature increase would result in 42 million tons less produced wheat — or a loss of nearly one-quarter of the current wheat production.
“It’s pretty severe,” Prasad said. “The projected effect of climate change on wheat is more than what has been forecast. That’s challenging because the world will have to at least double our food supply in the next 30 years if we’re going to feed 9.6 billion people.”
Prasad and colleagues published their study, “Rising temperatures reduce global wheat production,” in a recent issue of the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. The study was supported through the Kansas Wheat Commission and the Kansas Wheat Alliance, two organizations seeking ways to increase wheat yield.
For the study, researchers systematically tested 30 wheat crop models against field experiments from around the world that were conducted in areas where the average temperature of the growing season ranged from 15 to 32 degrees Celsius. The models accounted for planting dates, planting rates, temperatures and other crop management factors.
With the models, researchers were able to look at the effects of temperature stresses on wheat and predict future changes based on temperature changes.
Researchers found that the effects from climate change and its increasing temperatures on wheat will be more severe than once projected and are happening sooner than expected. While Prasad said increases in the average temperature are problematic, a bigger challenge is the extreme temperatures that are resulting from climate change.
“Extreme temperature doesn’t only mean heat; it also means cold,” Prasad said. “Simply looking at the average temperature doesn’t really show us anything because it’s the extremities that are more detrimental to crops. Plants can handle gradual changes because they have time to adapt, but an extreme heat wave or cold snap can kill a plant because that adjustment period is often nonexistent.”
Researchers also found that increasing temperatures are shortening the time frame that wheat plants have to mature and produce full heads for harvest, resulting in less grain produced from each plant.
“It’s like having one minute to fill a tall glass with water. Under optimal conditions, we can fill that glass pretty well,” Prasad said. “But now we’re factoring in extreme temperatures that are affecting the growing window and the grain size. So it becomes like trying to fill that same glass, but now we only have 40 seconds to do it and the faucet is running slower.”
Currently, Prasad and colleagues at Kansas State University, in collaboration with the university’s Wheat Genetics Resource Center, are using growth chambers and heats tents to quantify the effects of temperature. The data will help in refining the crop models so that they can be more accurate in predicting wheat responses.
Their work will help scientists develop more robust models that can help farmers globally select more weather-tolerant and resilient wheat varieties based on their location. Additionally, farmers can determine the optimal planting date to avoid stress and minimize possible exposure to extreme weather events, such as heat and cold snaps, during the growing season.
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Kansas is the No. 1 wheat-producing state in the U.S., growing 9.4 million acres of wheat in 2014.
As an alumni of K-State I’m saddened that climate nonsense has infected such a practical school. It proves that the corruption of grant money knows no bounds…
I imagine that the majority of the Ag department is scoffing at this fantasy-based research and the rebuttals are on the way.
USAID’s Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab, AKA the Bull Barns II.
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As no-one else has [said] it yet.
Why would no-one take any measures to adapt to extreme weather fluctuations if they become more common?
That’s what mankind has done since before we invented the wheel.
They are judging modern man by their own standards, Stupid.
There is that and filling the whopper glass . . . wow!
When universities purchase the climatestrange modeling kit, does it come with an anthology of analogies to select from so that we, the uninformed, will be able to understand their “science”?
A warmer world means a longer growing season and higher yields of grain and other food crops.
Higher CO2 also increases yield.
All beneficial for a burgeoning world population.
The only problem is that the globe has not warmed significantly for over twenty-five years.
Also opens up more land area for cultivation?
Three concrete reasons this model based study does not pass the scratch and sniff test.
First, FAO tracks wheat yields by country. In the developed world (US, Europe) yield growth slowed to virtually nothing by about 1990 as Borlaug’s green revolution (dwarfing, rust resistance) was fully adopted along with other best practices like optimum fertilizer.. ROW Noticably slowed by 2000. By 2010, even places like Afganistan were fully on green revolution strains. Any remaining yield gains are mainly best practices adoption (e.g. optimum synthetic fertilizer) in places like Afghanistan . Details in Gaia’s Limits. The steady yield progress graphed in this study from combining 32 model inputs simply is not so after 2000 on a global production/hectare basis according to FAOSTAT. It could only come from overweighting (by simple averaging) countries like Afganistan or Pakistan or Ethiopia where best practice gains are still occuring. BTW, same is true with rice. Japan and China flat yields since 1995, still accumulating best practice gains in places like Thailand and Cambodia
Second, summer extreme heat can affect yield if during anthesis. That a spring wheat, not a winter wheat, issue. According to USDA (I just checked) most world wheat is winter wheat (bread, noodles in China). 3/4 of US, virtually all of China.
Third, warming would not affect winter wheat growing seasons or anthesis (planted in the fall, harvested the following late spring/ early summer depending on length of winter when the ‘grass’ is dormant. It would lengthen the spring wheat season.
Bonus questions from Gaia’s Limits. What country is the worlds largest producer of both wheat and potatoes? What country is second? A 1=China, 2=India. And potato yields per hectare have been flat in China since 1990 and since 2000 in India.
There are also a number of operators who accept lower yields because new technology allows it to happen at a reduced operating cost. In St. Johns Michigan, where my extended family operates 5 sections, we’ve been stalled at the same level of per-acre corn and soybean yields for several decades. But in 1970 it took six passes through a field by the time you did seed-bed prep, planting, cultivation, mid-season application of herbicides or pesticides, and harvesting. Now were getting just slightly higher yields with 3 passes from low-til practices, and more intelligent use of pesticides. We could probably push the yields by 10 to 15%, but we have no incentive to do that since the more efficient practice leaves us with sustainable land and better operating margins, (although the cost-benefit ratios probably change this year since diesel has become so cheap).
Same on my dairy farm in Wisconsin. Very good comment. Our yields are now weather, not technology dependent, including for alfalfa (we use only insect resistant, expensive cultivars). The issue you aptly note is even bigger in the developing world. Many non-farmers do not realize this.
For cereals, the new strains (wheat, barley, oats, sorghum…) only produce bigger yields with more water. In water deficient or highly variable areas like Ethiopia, the new strainsdo not yield more and would lead to crop failure in dry years. Better to stick with traditional cultivars with lower yield but less failure risk. Nairobi Kenya best practice yields (Katumani research station) with the best new CYMMT drough resistant maize cultivars are still only about half of Madison Wisconsin even tho it gets the same rainfall or more. Problem is the Kenya MAM rainy season is 3 months; corn takes 4-5 to mature. The best shorter 4 month maturities yield significantly less, something we worry about with delayed May planting after longer winters. Also why Wisconsin yields will never equal Iowa or Illinois. Wisconsin gets a fairly even 5 months of rain. Kenya maize will never equal midwest yields.
The reason dwarf IR8 rice has not taken off in places like Cambodia or Thailand is that yield is much more affected by weeds (due to dwarfing) and needs supplemental synthetic fertilizer unlike traditional lower yield cultivars. Only as these poor farmers can afford herbicides and fertilizer does high yielding IR8 make farming sense. So, only China and Japan have widespread adoption, with yields up to twice elsewhere in Asia.
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The book figuration on food calory capacity used 100% best practices everywhere for all crops by 2050, plus continued yield advance (via GMO) in crops like maize, soy, and cotton, plus no backsliding. In India, half of the irrigated Punjab breadbasket is incurring salt buildup, and being lost at a rate of about 5%/year. Their irrigation groundwater runs out about 2025 unless there is a major change to a wetter climate to recharge those northern India aquifers. In the US over 10 million acres are infested with newly evolved glyphosate resistant weeds (8 major species) that can reduce yields by 50-80%, forces the abandonment of Round Up Ready no til, and still causes yield reductions on the order of 10-20% because of less effective row control tilling and spraying at higher cost. A backslide in the worlds most advanced agricultural heartland. Regards to a fellow farming family.
Good, some actual information. Thanks, Rud.
More on the “research” (think a better word might be “projection”):
full article is paywalled but –
abstract and some info:
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n2/full/nclimate2470.html#supplementary-information
53 authors, P.V.V. Prasad was lucky 13th.
29 references which seems to read like their previous work (buddy list?) and a few others but nothing from the USDA?? What is a thorough review of the lit mean anymore? or does it? Perhaps that is beside the point?
supplementary materials (3.5 Mb): models used, methods, figures, tables, results
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v5/n2/extref/nclimate2470-s1.pdf
Bubba, I will go read the supplemental stuff (usually free), but already know what will be found. Article is not worth buying based on the abstract. Spent three years researching Gaia’s Limits. Energy part was easy, except for biofuels. Hardest was food and water. Water because the UNEP uses a nutty definition of available water (which excludes rain fed agriculture!) Food because so darned complex. Diet (caloric intake, meat/grain, type of meat), crops, regional variation in crops (see maise in Wisconsin/Kenya, rice comments just below ro Mark). A hard, tedious, but rewarding data slog in the end. Not a beach read, and not Ehrlich alarmism.
Excellent comments from 2 heartland farmers.
Much appreciated by an old Wisconsin farm boy, now located in the Great North Wet!
Thanks Rud! Thanks Mark!
Huh?
“Coming decades…”
climate models of wheat yield based on what higher temperature assumptions?
There is no link so one cannot be sure of what models they used , but it is reminiscent of the study, commented on here a few days ago, that claimed that the Great Plains would become drought ridden through climate change .
In that earlier work the authors were using the most extreme RCP models for future temperature rises to calculate increased evaporation rates from soil, with cold season precipitation unable to compensate . However the more extreme RCP models are already being seen as diverging from reality , thanks to the pause , and the less extreme model was not used in that study as far as I could ascertain.
Have the authors of this latest work done the same thing and used forecast temperature rises which do not, at present, look realistic . I thought that current grain and soybean yields were at record levels , courtesy of mild temperature increase perhaps and increased CO2 levels. ,
I know less about finance than I do about climatology , but a thought occurred to me : given that it was funded by wheat growing organisations it couldn’t be an attempt to manipulate the futures market in grain could it?
Fold this “study” into an appeal for greater subsidies?
I’m not sure that follows, since many grain crop subsidies are in the form of modest payments to hold land out of production, do nothing, get paid, the American slackers dream
Manipulate the futures market? Nope, won’t work
Appeal for greater subsidies? Nope, won’t work
Get federal funding to study an existential crisis and propose desired solutions? Yep, it’ll work
Increased forcing of the climate is associated with increased positive NAO/AO and a cooler AMO, which means wetter for the Great Plains.
“The projected effect of climate change on wheat is more than what has been forecast.”
I love it. Where in here is any connection with reality? The computer model projections are greater than the other computer model forecasts? What, if anything, is going on in the real world?
Wait, oh, crops are doing just fine and, short of biofuels destroying perfectly good food and killing people as part of a political agenda, we are doing just fine.
If… projected… models… predict…
——————–
IF
“Extreme temperature doesn’t only mean heat; it also means cold,” Prasad said. So the hotcold means It’s Even Worse Than We Thought (TM)
“Simply looking at the average temperature doesn’t really show us anything …” Ya don’t say
‘“It’s like having one minute to fill a tall glass with water. …but now we only have 40 seconds to do it and the faucet is running slower.”’
As a testimony to the brilliance of that analogy I decided to test it out. And, no Prasad, I didn’t use a computer model to validate it. I conducted a real world test; seriously. I turned my kitchen faucet on, but only about 1/4. So that’s much “slower” than I’d normally run it. Then I got a timer and a 16 oz. glass. Immediately uponst (I made that word up) placing the glass under the faucet I hit the timer. Sorry to bust your bubble Prasad, but it only took 3 seconds to fill it.
So, that means if we only have 40 seconds to now fill a glass we can still fill 13 of them. May I suggest that this means your analogy is probably as accurate as your computer models are. May I suggest we take a walk in the real world instead of La La Land (otherwise known as Universities and models).
You didn’t use the approved CAGW glass, which is so large that it can only be modeled.
And he used real water, not a modeled approximation with sketchy inputs…
I modeled the very large CAGW glass and I was still able to fill 4 of them with beer, but then I found that the CAGW glass doesn’t hold water
A CAGW glass has a finite volume but an infinite surface. You can fill it, but you can’t get a grip on it!
The CAGW glass is full of holes, ba dum chhh!
So…more indirect evidence that the climate models are inherently flawed.
The thing that struck me is they looked at areas with a temperature of 15 to 32 degrees Celsius. The temperature in southern Alberta can very from a wet rainy 5 degrees Celsius to 40 degrees Celsius at any time in the growing season and yet the farmers seem to have no problem with the wheat production around here.
” ecophysiology ” the pretentiousness and contradiction ooze from this term.
You also missed what followed…”the Director of the USAID Feed the Future Sustainable Intensification Innovation Lab…”.
WTF? I read that and thought, does that even fit on a business card? However, it does sort of roll of the tongue. He must be a hoot at conferences with a job title like that!
I’m now at the point that I’m questioning how in heck humanity made it to modern times without all the science and government help. How did we make it out of caves without people in lab coats telling us it was safe to come out? How did plants and animals adapt without the Wizards of Odds telling us what to do and when?
Are we sure humans evolved and weren’t created in a petri dish a couple of decades ago?
This is the type of thing that should raise eyebrows of those still on the fence, as well as the diehard believers of the C in cagw. The actual work we have on extreme weather indicates anything from more mild weather to slightly less but slightly stronger storms. If there is anything worse then this in the published work I haven’t found it.
“found wheat yields are projected to decrease by 6 percent for each degree Celsius the temperature rises if no measures to adapt to extreme weather fluctuations are taken.”
Wait extreme weather or warmth? anyway, we have this tool called breeding, and we do it for a wide range of conditions. Even several degrees warmer and wheat (a grass) can still thrive. We have bred our most productive lines for specific regions, but it wouldnt take much to move their ranges, like AT ALL. We might find the most productive lines prefer certain areas, but we literally have NO data whatsoever in depth enough to truly tell us the full range of places we might be able to use our continually improving most productive lines. Last and most obvious point here, is we absolutely WILL continue breeding plants, and trying to spread their ranges. so a study base don having done nothing? well its basically meaningless. We absolutely will, with zero reason in the world to think we would have trouble moving the range of the best lines a bit, if that is even needed.
“Researchers found that the effects from climate change and its increasing temperatures on wheat will be more severe than once projected and are happening sooner than expected.”
Which earths data are they looking at? On this earth industrial ag continues to rise in yield, organic ag in the first world, and also methods used by the third world continue to improve. So what data is this based on?
“Plants can handle gradual changes because they have time to adapt, but an extreme heat wave or cold snap can kill a plant because that adjustment period is often nonexistent.”
If they were talking about corn this would make sense. With wheat we have varieties with spring or winter growth habits, but we also have some that can grow in spring but can handle winters. My own springs and falls, I have a freeze and thaw literally nearly daily, for several weeks at each end, my winter habit wheats don’t care, they are a grass, they inf act start growing in this period. We ALWAYS had wheat genetics capable of very fast and extreme changes though, just not during the short, and continually shrinking period the seeds form. Yep we are breeding that period to be shorter. All indication suggests we should expect more stable not less stable yields in future years, with a warmer or colder world in fact.
To re cap, we have genetics in our wheats more then capable of handling very extreme changes, they literally already do and always have. It is only the short period this grass is making seeds there is a potential issue, and this window is getting smaller as we breed for plants that finish their seeds faster.
I know all this as a back yard plant breeder who grows a bunch of wheat. All basic basic stuff. This should be raising eyebrows of the diehards. Its absolutely 100% smoke and mirrors.
They might as well say, “If humans stop the advancements in this field, and ignore most of the data on overall trends (and presumably) focus on some place the trend was down we might loose as much as 30% of our yields!!! (ignoring the fact we literally have full reason to think yields will continue to rise and in fact become more stable- I might also point out some of the work in the third world with low input models is starting ever so slowly to make huge headway- we might be about to see a second smaller third world low expensive input green revolution of sorts as well)
This piece was propaganda plain and simple.
There’s been discussion in WUWT of late of researchers looking to publicise/hype their findings etc.
I think the sad truth is that it is impossible, if you need more research work, to investigate a potential issue and report ” after detailed analysis by experts we conclude that we don’t see any problems in the foreseeable future”.
Checking GISS temp history for Kansas State and some rural Kansas towns. No warming for about 100 years. For example
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/show_station.cgi?id=425001449720&dt=1&ds=14
BTW, living in Wheat country for decades and having more than a casual interest in Ag business, I can say that the top chart of Wheat yields is about right. Agricultural yields in general have been increasing for many decades. Ask anyone in the Ag business & they will universally say that they foresee no real threat to better yielding crops far into the future. Crop producers have always been fully aware of climatic conditions affecting their lives and business.
I don’t know Prof. Prasad but I’d speculate that his work is not typical of what occurs in any Ag related department within Kansas State University. Maybe new grant money showed up.
Corn, yes. Soy, yes. Rice, no except for spread of IR8 semi dwarf strains and best practice herbicides and and golden rice for nutritional sufficiency). Wheat, was true until one-two decades ago. Then yield slowed down/ stopped in best practice areas. Still increasing elsewhere as best practices spead. I graphed all the data from USDA and FAOSTAT, and in come cases also other country national data like for India pulses and potatos. Only quesrionis how reliable FAOSTAT is.
The question is not whether yields will increase. Most will, at different rates. Maize almost certainly 35-40% by 2050. Rice could be 50% by then, but probably less. Soy and wheat, not nearly so much. Barley, oats, alfalfa,potatoes, pulses, sorghum, millet, taro, cassava, ground nuts, fruits, vegetables, cotton (because an alternate use of arable land) and on and on. All assuming best practices and ignoring any hypothetical negatives from climate change as in this suspect paper (a generally safe assumption). The interesting question is whether amd for how long those increases provide an adequate diet for projected population growth given constraints on additional arable land, and constraints on irrigation placed by available water. The broad answer after slogging through a mountain of complex details is they suffice until about 2050 at a population of about 9.2 billion. But not for much longer, and not for a much greater population. This is not a question of further innovation. That is assumed (and also no backsliding). It is a problem of the low hanging fruit already having been picked, and diminishing marginal returns.
I work in alternative ag. We have answers now for all this, let alone other advances. Just have to think outside the box, as some of us are doing and more joining all the time. The answer? treecrops, especially for marginal areas we cannot grow the traditional crops. We use a large portion we grow for animals, and there are several things from trees they eat as readily. Trees can far surpass the yields of corn or soy used for this now, and meet all the same needs, in a more stable, lower input model that can even work where current crops do not. In fact here in the high desert where we run cattle, such a system could slowly improve on itself as fertility is built benefitting the free range cattle while we grow the feed for the industrial ones. Other crops this can be done as well, but feeding animals like this is the most likely to build a market soon.
when you look at the numbers this by itself could more then answer our issues. As could better management of food that IS grown.
It will be a few years before I could try to build such a market myself, but I am growing a range of trees on lands considered non arable, without irrigation, that a mix of the harvests is more then adequate and desirable to feed animals. I am working with and intending to work with various fruits, nuts and berries for humans as well, but I see greater potentials in feeding animals this way. Or atleast a shorter path to make it work well here reliably. Alot of wilder stuff thats great for animals is more reliable with my late frosts then the more traditional fruits and nuts. A group with better funding could do all this rather quick.
Concur completely. Extrapolating the yield trends for Corn, Soybeans and Wheat to 2050 was what I considered a good bet, at least in the USA/Canada. Predictions are not guaranteed, especially about the future. As far as diminishing marginal returns, true also. But I remember 1960s ag technology. Compared to then, 2015 looks almost miraculous.
Also I noticed a good fit may result if one plotted atmospheric CO2 concentration on top of the Corn yield.
It’s not only heat it’s cold. It’s not just less rain it’s too much it’s not just stagnant air it’s sharknadoes. It’s not just the daylight it’s the darkness. More grant money. Wheat grows best in subsidized fields sowed with grant money.
And don’t forget [that] extreme weather is caused by global warming and global cooling- just like 40 years ago:-
http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf
What’s all this fuss I hear about fighting climbing chains? Who ever heard of such a stupid thing? Why have you ever tried to go up a snowy mountain without climbing chains? It’s a sure way to have an accident or get stuck and freeze to death. With children in the car. And the children, they love going up the mountains in the snow to ski and have fun. What about the children? Why, if we didn’t have climbing chains all those kids would just be stuck freezing on the road or down over the side sliding and crashing and crying because their parents couldn’t use climbing chains. And another thing……..
What? What? It’s “climate change?”
Oh. Nevermind!
[We still miss you Gilda]
The report misses at least two things:
1). If the problem gets serious, new hybrid will be developed that can stand the heat (if it happens).
2). One serious long-range forecasting group reports that because of global urbanization and industrialization, global population will DECLINE which, if it happens, could offset wheat production losses and be a self-mitigating factor in climate change as carbon production would then decrease too:
https://www.stratfor.com/weekly/population-decline-and-great-economic-reversal?mc_cid=a0f058f040&mc_eid=3ce703ee15
Global population will peak during the next 30 years, before it begins to rapidly decline. Yes, populations continue to grow; but, the global median age is now 30 years, where it was 21 in 1960. In Europe and North America the median age went from 24 in 1970 to 37.8 (the US) and 42.5 (Europe). In Japan, Italy and parts of the old USSR, the populations are already contracting.
What I see on a global level, is steadily falling prices. At some point in time less acreage will be farmed as crop yields increase and population growth slows and then falls. Eventually, less food will be grown for the simple fact that older populations eat less, and smaller populations will demand less wheat, rice, meat and fruit, etc…
I get what you’re saying. But, I think we should call these people out. They’re not scientists but political activists dressed up in lab coats.
Is this undergrad ‘research’ ?
Processing tomato yields in California have been increasing at about 2.5% a year for over fifty years now. This should meet the world population growth, but not the increase in world per capita consumption. Countries like the US and Australia obtain much greater yields than the rest of the world due to technological advancements. When others catch up, we should be able to feed a growing population.
Researchers are looking at mitochondria now, which are the small filaments that attach to the roots under the ground. They provide a greater uptake of water and nutrients from the soil. Researchers are expecting enormous increases in yields when they are optimised. We know now that poor soil biology produces poor yields.
Some of the enzyme manufacturers like Novo are exploring incorporating the mitochondria on to the seeds before they are sold. Maybe Rud there will be another green revolution.
There is no reason, except cost, why row crops can’t be grown in high-rise hot houses in the future, collecting all the transpired water and reusing it. LED lights with the specific wavelengths for each plant would save on electricity, and pesticides would not be required in a closed environment. Two or three crops could be grown each year. The processing plant or packaging line could be nearby, saving on transport, and the waste heat from the factory could be used to warm the greenhouse.
[But you can’t do that. It will require oil to make the plastic and glass hot houses. .mod]
Mycorrhiza are the small filaments at the root-soil interface. Mitochondria are structures found inside cells that process energy. Also see “root nodules” to get started. And yes, understanding the Rhizosphere will be an increasingly important part of understanding how plants grow in soil for future generations.
wheat yields are projected to decrease by 6 percent for each degree Celsius the temperature rises if no measures to adapt to extreme weather fluctuations are taken. Based on the 2012-2013 wheat harvest of 701 million tons worldwide, the resulting temperature increase would result in 42 million tons less produced wheat — or a loss of nearly one-quarter of the current wheat production.
OK, I think I figured out their funky math. Obviously 42 is not 25% of 701. So I am guessing that they very poorly worded something, and by doing so, covered up the fact that their own report is less than concerning.
6% of 701 is 42.06! So the 42 number is not meant to be 25% of 701, the 42 number is the supposed decline in production per degree. If we had a temperature increase of just over 4 degrees, then that would give you a production decline of 25%.
Now here is why I think they worded it that way. Let’s assume a climate sensitivity of 3 degrees per doubling of CO2. I could easily make the case that 3 is over the top high, but let’s use it anyway to demonstrate how silly this result is.
We are currently at about 400 ppm of CO2, so doubling is 800 ppm. We’re currently seeing an increase in CO2 on the order of 2 ppm per year. So, assuming nothing changes (hey, they assume no changes in crop variety, location or farming techniques, so my assumption is just as reasonable as theirs) it will be 200 years for just 3 degrees of temperature change and a decline of 18%. I’m too tired and a smidge inebriated to boot, so I’ll not do the log math to figure out how many years to 25%. A lot more than 200 is the point.
So their contention is that over the next 200 years, we will be unable to develop new crop strains, take advantage of newly arable land, irrigate deserts, develop new agricultural techniques, build greenhouse complexes, or a host of other tactics to make up for a mere 18% decline in production. That additional CO2 won’t increase crop production on arable land like it does in greenhouses. 200 YEARS to make up 18%? We’ve tripled crop production in the last 60!
They expressed the numbers the way they did to make it seem like the problem they were identifying was immediate. Their own numbers show that it is NOT immediate, and the notion that the problem exists at all is just as unreasonable.
India is thinking of exporting wheat this year. Food shortages? Not yet.